“But you must! You simply must! We must sit together at supper, we have still so much to say! Besides, if you hurry off like that I fancy Thomery won’t be best pleased. Oh, I say, there he is, coming our way! There’s no denying it, he is a fine figure of a man, though he is in his fifties – but!... but!... but do look! What is the matter with him? He looks as if he had seen a ghost!” Sonia Danidoff, who had been waltzing with Thomery, was a little out of breath. A quick glance in a mirror showed the lovely Princess that her cheeks were rather flushed.

I am scarlet, she thought, with that touch of feminine exaggeration so characteristic of her! She was a true daughter of Eve!

At that exact moment she felt a slight tug at the bottom of her skirt, and at the same time a black coat was making profuse apologies: it was Monsieur Nanteuil.

“I am in despair, Princess!” cried the banker. “But no one is quite responsible for his movements in such a crush!... I am very much afraid that I have stepped on the muslin of your ravishing gown, and have slightly torn it.” The Princess protested that it did not matter in the least, and the banker moved away, bowing low and pouring out apologies and regrets. As soon as he had left her the Princess showed her annoyance: how could she lead the cotillion with this tear in her dress, slight though it might be – and the cotillion would begin in less than half an hour!

Then she remembered that her fiancé had led her, on her arrival, to a little drawing-room, at the end of the gallery, quite away from the reception rooms, so that she might leave her cloak there, saying:

“Dear Princess, I have prepared this boudoir for you, and you only.”

Sonia decided to retire to this boudoir at once and repair the damage to her dress. As she passed the cloak-room on her way a maid offered her services. The Princess refused them. If she could not have Nadine she preferred to manage for herself; besides, she saw that two pins, concealed in the silk muslin, would put her dress to rights; and a touch of powder on her cheeks would bring down her colour to a becoming tint.

She was considerably amused at the veritable arsenal of flasks and boxes of perfumes which Thomery, as became an attentive lover, had placed there in her honour : the little boudoir had been transformed into a comfortable ladies’ dressing-room. Everything was provided, down to a glass of sugar and water, down to a little phial of alcohol and mint!

Sonia opened a powder box; then, like all the women of her race, having a passion for perfumes, she took up a scent sprayer and lavishly sprinkled her throat and the lower part of her face with what was labelled, “essence of violets”.