heavily embossed.
This time she was left in no doubt as to who had sent her the flowers she was to wear for the evening, and although the beauty of them delighted her she would far rather she had not received them than that Paul di Rini had footed the bill for them.
Had he formed the habit of sending Arlette flowers, and had he decided she reminded him of a gardenia ?
In Italy time, she was to discover, meant nothing, and it was late when she was finally collected and escorted to Francini’s. After spending more than an hour waiting in one of the public rooms of the hotel she felt a little out of humour at the commencement of the evening, and her good humour was not restored quickly when she realised that Edouard had not yet put in an appearance.
But the Count’s guests were already numerous, and they were in high good humour. The restaurant was brilliantly lighted, with almost as many waiters as there were guests threading their way amongst the tables, and what instantly riveted Cathleen’s eye was the enormous horseshoe table at one end that was groaning under an assortment of chickens, lobsters, cold salmon, grapes, peaches, pineapples and other exotic fruits.
Champagne corks were popping like machine-gun fire all around them, and as she was placed in a chair between Paul and a florid dowager—who looked as if sooner or later she would wish to lea rn all about her—she found herself mentally trying to calculate how much such an evening as this was likely to cost the Count, and if he was really as financially insecure as Edouard had intimated she couldn’t help wondering where the money came from. The money that would pay for it all.
Did families like the di Rinis live on credit ? Was it always assumed that they would many well, and if they did not were their assets enough to justify the confidence of their bank manager in them ? All those pictures on the walls at the palazzo , the jewels in the bank vaults, the fading heirlooms?
Although there was a charming young woman in white on the other side of Paul he devoted himsel f almost exclusively to the guest on his right hand. He pressed her to discover an appetite, to look as if she was really enjoying this, her first trip to Venice.
“Forget Arlette,” he whispered in her ear, while Bianca, in shimmering cloth of gold, on the far side of the table, managed to pay attention to her own near neighbour and at the same time keep her inscrutable eyes fixed on her brother and the girl he had singled out for so much attention. “You are so much more charming than Arlette could ever hope to be, and already I feel that I have known you for years.” He was gazing into her eyes, forcing her to meet the ardent look that embarrassed her acutely, had he but known it; and every time he lowered his voice and spoke confidentially she was aware of other eyes watching them apart from Bianca’s ... shrewd, speculative eyes that increased her embarrassment tenfold.
They were so so i gnee and patrician, these Italian women of good family. They had slender necks and sloping shoulders, like the shoulders of women in Old Masters, and their eyes were brilliant and fantastically long-lashed. She didn’t for one moment make the mistake of attributing these lashes to false ones, for the men were distinguished in the same way. But the women had the advantage every time in their couturier-designed dresses, and their brilliant jewels. They chattered like birds in a cage, and their exquisitely dressed heads were either black as ebony or excitingly Titian.
She knew now why Titian had painted his women with that hair that resembled damped-down fires. Against creamy skins it was enchanting.
But still Edouard failed to put in an appearance, and even Bianca began to lose interest in Cathleen and watch the door. She looked as if something had gone wrong with her evening, and Cathleen decided it was the continued absence of the Frenchman.
When twelve o’clock struck he had still not
This time she was left in no doubt as to who had sent her the flowers she was to wear for the evening, and although the beauty of them delighted her she would far rather she had not received them than that Paul di Rini had footed the bill for them.
Had he formed the habit of sending Arlette flowers, and had he decided she reminded him of a gardenia ?
In Italy time, she was to discover, meant nothing, and it was late when she was finally collected and escorted to Francini’s. After spending more than an hour waiting in one of the public rooms of the hotel she felt a little out of humour at the commencement of the evening, and her good humour was not restored quickly when she realised that Edouard had not yet put in an appearance.
But the Count’s guests were already numerous, and they were in high good humour. The restaurant was brilliantly lighted, with almost as many waiters as there were guests threading their way amongst the tables, and what instantly riveted Cathleen’s eye was the enormous horseshoe table at one end that was groaning under an assortment of chickens, lobsters, cold salmon, grapes, peaches, pineapples and other exotic fruits.
Champagne corks were popping like machine-gun fire all around them, and as she was placed in a chair between Paul and a florid dowager—who looked as if sooner or later she would wish to lea rn all about her—she found herself mentally trying to calculate how much such an evening as this was likely to cost the Count, and if he was really as financially insecure as Edouard had intimated she couldn’t help wondering where the money came from. The money that would pay for it all.
Did families like the di Rinis live on credit ? Was it always assumed that they would many well, and if they did not were their assets enough to justify the confidence of their bank manager in them ? All those pictures on the walls at the palazzo , the jewels in the bank vaults, the fading heirlooms?
Although there was a charming young woman in white on the other side of Paul he devoted himsel f almost exclusively to the guest on his right hand. He pressed her to discover an appetite, to look as if she was really enjoying this, her first trip to Venice.
“Forget Arlette,” he whispered in her ear, while Bianca, in shimmering cloth of gold, on the far side of the table, managed to pay attention to her own near neighbour and at the same time keep her inscrutable eyes fixed on her brother and the girl he had singled out for so much attention. “You are so much more charming than Arlette could ever hope to be, and already I feel that I have known you for years.” He was gazing into her eyes, forcing her to meet the ardent look that embarrassed her acutely, had he but known it; and every time he lowered his voice and spoke confidentially she was aware of other eyes watching them apart from Bianca’s ... shrewd, speculative eyes that increased her embarrassment tenfold.
They were so so i gnee and patrician, these Italian women of good family. They had slender necks and sloping shoulders, like the shoulders of women in Old Masters, and their eyes were brilliant and fantastically long-lashed. She didn’t for one moment make the mistake of attributing these lashes to false ones, for the men were distinguished in the same way. But the women had the advantage every time in their couturier-designed dresses, and their brilliant jewels. They chattered like birds in a cage, and their exquisitely dressed heads were either black as ebony or excitingly Titian.
She knew now why Titian had painted his women with that hair that resembled damped-down fires. Against creamy skins it was enchanting.
But still Edouard failed to put in an appearance, and even Bianca began to lose interest in Cathleen and watch the door. She looked as if something had gone wrong with her evening, and Cathleen decided it was the continued absence of the Frenchman.
When twelve o’clock struck he had still not
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