almost as long as that, were you not?"
"My clearest,—I may even say my dearest,—recollection of him is as a neighbour, Lady Jane. He was most agreeable next door."
Cricklewick appeared in the door.
"Count Antonio Fogazario," he announced.
A small, wizened man in black satin knee-breeches entered the room and approached the Marchioness. With courtly grace he lifted her fingers to his lips and, in a voice that quavered slightly, declared in French that his joy on seeing her again was only surpassed by the hideous gloom he had experienced during the week that had elapsed since their last meeting.
"But now the gloom is dispelled and I am basking in sunshine so rare and soft and—"
"My dear Count," broke in the Marchioness, "you forget that we are enjoying the worst blizzard of the year."
"Enjoying,—vastly enjoying it!" he cried. "It is the most enchanting blizzard I have ever known. Ah, my dear Lady Jane! This is delightful!"
His sharp little face beamed with pleasure. The vast pleated shirt front extended itself to amazing proportions, as if blown up by an invisible though prodigious bellows, and his elbow described an angle of considerable elevation as he clasped the slim hand of the tall young woman. The crown of his sleek black toupee was on a line with her shoulder.
"God bless me," he added, in a somewhat astonished manner, "this is most gratifying. I could not have lifted it half that high yesterday without experiencing the most excruciating agony." He worked his arm up and down experimentally. "Quite all right, quite all right. I feared I was in for another siege. I cannot tell you how delighted I am. Ahem! Where was I? Oh, yes—This is a pleasure, Lady Jane, a positive delight. How charming you are look—"
"Save your compliments, Count, for the Princess," interrupted the girl, smiling. "She is coming, you know."
"I doubt it," he said, fumbling for his snuff-box. "I saw her this afternoon. Chilblains. Weather like this, you see. Quite a distance from her place to the street-cars. Frightful going. I doubt it very much. Now, what was it she said to me this afternoon? Something very important, I remember distinctly,—but it seems to have slipped my mind completely. I am fearfully annoyed with myself. I remember with great distinctness that it was something I was determined to remember, and here I am forgetting—Ah, let me see! It comes to me like a flash. I have it! She said she felt as though she had a cold coming on or something like that. Yes, I am sure that was it. I remember she blew her nose frequently, and she always makes a dreadful noise when she blows her nose. A really unforgettable noise, you know. Now, when I blow my nose, I don't behave like an elephant. I—"
"You blow it like a gentleman," interrupted the Marchioness, as he paused in some confusion.
"Indeed I do," he said gratefully. "In the most polished manner possible, my dear lady."
Lady Jane put her handkerchief to her lips. There was a period of silence. The Count appeared to be thinking with great intensity. He had a harassed expression about the corners of his nose. It was he who broke the silence. He broke it with a most tremendous sneeze.
"The beastly snuff," he said in apology.
Cricklewick's voice seemed to act as an echo to the remark.
"The Right-Honourable Mrs. Priestly-Duff," he announced, and an angular, middle-aged lady in a rose-coloured gown entered the room. She had a very long nose and prominent teeth; her neck was of amazing length and appeared to be attached to her shoulders by means of vertical, skin-covered ropes, running from torso to points just behind her ears, where they were lost in a matting of faded, straw-coloured hair. On second thought, it may be simpler to remark that her neck was amazingly scrawny. It will save confusion. Her voice was a trifle strident and her French execrable.
"Isn't it awful?" she said as she joined the trio at the fireplace. "I thought I'd never get here. Two hours coming, my dear, and I must be starting home at once if I want to get there before midnight."
"The Princess will be here," said the Marchioness.
"I'll wait fifteen minutes," said the new-comer crisply, pulling up her gloves. "I've had a trying day, Marchioness. Everything has gone wrong,—even the drains. They're frozen as tight as a drum and heaven knows when they'll get them thawed out! Who ever heard of such weather in March?"
"Ah, my dear Mrs. Priestly-Duff, you should not forget the beautiful sunshine we had yesterday," said the Count cheerily.
"Precious little good it does today," she retorted, looking down upon him from a lofty height, and as if she had not noticed his presence before. "When did you come in, Count?"
"It is quite likely the Princess will not venture out in such weather," interposed the Marchioness, sensing squalls.
"Well, I'll stop a bit anyway and get my feet warm. I hope she doesn't come. She is a good deal of a wet blanket, you must admit."
"Wet blankets," began the Count argumentatively, and then, catching a glance from the Marchioness, cleared his throat, blew his nose, and mumbled something about poor people who had no blankets at all, God help them on such a night as this.
Lady Jane had turned away from the group and was idly turning the leaves of the Illustrated London News. The smallest intelligence would have grasped the fact that Mrs. Priestly-Duff was not a genial soul.
"Who else is coming?" she demanded, fixing the little hostess with the stare that had just been removed from the back of Lady Jane's head.
Cricklewick answered from the doorway.
"Lord Temple. Baron—ahem!—Whiskers—eh? Baron Wissmer. Prince Waldemar de Bosky. Count Wilhelm Frederick Von Blitzen."
Four young men advanced upon the Marchioness, Lord Temple in the van. He was a tall, good-looking chap, with light brown hair that curled slightly above the ears, and eyes that danced.
"This, my dear Marchioness, is my friend, Baron Wissmer," he said, after bending low over her hand.
The Baron, whose broad hands were encased in immaculate white gloves that failed by a wide margin to button across his powerful wrists, smiled sheepishly as he enveloped her fingers in his huge palm.
"It is good of you to let me come, Marchioness," he said awkwardly, a deep flush spreading over his sea-tanned face. "If I manage to deport myself like the bull in the china shop, pray lay it to clumsiness and not to ignorance. It has been a very long time since I touched the hand of a Marchioness."
"Small people, like myself, may well afford to be kind and forgiving to giants," said she, smiling. "Dear me, how huge you are."
"I was once in the Emperor's Guard," said he, straightening his figure to its full six feet and a half. "The Blue Hussars. I may add with pride that I was not so horribly clumsy in regimentals. After all, it is the clothes that makes the man." He smiled as he looked himself over. "I shall not be at all offended or even embarrassed if you say 'goodness, how you have grown!'"
"The best tailor in London made that suit of clothes," said Lord Temple, surveying his friend with an appraising eye. Out of the corner of the same eye he explored the region beyond the group that now clustered about the hostess. Evidently he discovered what he was looking for. Leaving the Baron high and dry, he skirted the edge of
