This evening the family had assembled in a pleasant drawing-room on the rez-de-chaussée, and one after another each expressed delight in the repose and relief of such an hour after the social exertions of the day. The husband and wife as they sat opposite each other near the fireplace--he with his _Figaro_, and she busy with the restoration of some antique embroidery--were evidently people who had attained the goal of existence and were content. It was plain that their thoughts did not range beyond the present.
Not so with Gabrielle. Twice during the last quarter of an hour she has changed her seat and three times she has consulted the clock upon the chimney-piece.
At last she goes to a mirror and arranges her breast-knot of violets.
"Our Ella is beginning to be pretty," said Truyn opening his eyes after a doze behind the _Figaro_.
"Have you just discovered that?" Zinka asked smiling.
"Do you think my gown is becoming, Zini?" Gabrielle asked as gravely as if the matter were the Eastern question.
"Very becoming," her step-mother kindly assured her.
"Oho!" said Truyn banteringly, "our Ella is beginning to be vain."
Whereupon Gabrielle blushed deeply and to hide her confusion went to the piano and began to strum "Annette and Lubin." She did not play well but her hands looked very pretty running over the keys.
"I am surprised that Ossi does not make his appearance," said Truyn, laying aside his _Figaro_. Like all Austrians residing in Paris he had a special preference for that frivolous journal. "I met him this afternoon on the Boulevard, and he asked me expressly whether we were to be at home this evening."
Gabrielle looked, as her father observed with surprise, rather embarrassed. He had spoken thoughtlessly, and in masculine ignorance of the state of affairs. He was just beginning to teaze the girl about her behaviour when the footman announced the Baroness Melkweyser.
Her head-dress of red feathers sat somewhat askew upon the old-fashioned puffs of hair that framed her sallow face. She wore a gown of flowered brocade, the surpassing ugliness of which showed it to have been purchased at a bargain at some great bazaar as a "_fin de saison_." She squinted slightly, winked constantly, was entirely out of breath, and sank exhausted into an arm-chair, before uttering a word of greeting.