She lifted her eyes with eager appeal. 'Did he ask me? Did he think of me?' she said, under her breath.
The keen glance of the Duc flashed over her face, and grew harsh and suspicious.
'Because he spoke to you once,' he thought, 'I suppose, though you be a young saint in embryo, you are not proof against his millions! You are all alike after all, you women, even in the bud.'
Aloud he said: 'Yes; I believe Othmar bade my wife bring you. Perhaps she thought it was too much like the great world for you; it was a brilliant affair--all done for the Princess Napraxine.'
'Who is the Princess Napraxine?' she asked, surprised at her own temerity.
'She is the lady of Othmar's dreams,' said de Vannes, with an unkind satisfaction. 'You are sure to see her here sometime. What did you think of him the other night? You know, I suppose, that he could buy up all France if he chose.'
'I did not know,' she murmured. 'Nicole, I think, said that he was rich.'
'Rich!' echoed the Duc, with derision. 'That is not a word to describe Othmar. He has about a million millions, and he would probably be happier if he were the blind beggar of the Pont Neuf. His millions do not do anything for him with Nadine Napraxine, and it is only for Nadine Napraxine that he exists.'
Then he paused; the respect for _la jeune fille_, by which the most dissolute of his countrymen is restrained from long habit, making him repress the sentence he had on his lips; that momentary flush and light of happiness at being remembered by Othmar which he had seen on his young cousin's face had made him bitter against his neighbour and friend, and he would willingly have continued his sarcasms on a man who, with all the world at his feet, cared only for another man's wife, who laughed at him.
Yseulte listened with serious and wistful eyes; she did not know enough of his meaning, nor enough of the sympathy which had attracted her towards Othmar, to understand why she felt a vague pain at hearing these things said of him mingled with a delighted gratitude that he had remembered her. It was not to have gone to his party that she cared for, but to be remembered by him.
The children and their governesses approached her at that moment, and the Duc somewhat hurriedly turned away.