The Argosy — page 212: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

-- Lhe Sapphire Cross. 197 theirs, that at last her poor brother would be convinced of the true character of his wife.” “Well?” said Signor Renzo. ‘That is all,” replied the Grafin. She began to be a shade pro- voked with him for his extreme attention to her story. It was an _ act of lese majesté to her beauty. But perhaps now he would reward her by talking a little of that extremely bewitching and important person, the Countess Hildegarde von Altenwappen. But he did not. On the contrary, he rose with an absent air, and offered his arm to reconduct her beneath the maternal wing. Almost angry, she took it. On their way Signor Renzo asked, ‘“‘ Who is that ?” “That,” she replied, ‘‘is the Princess M——. Look at the little court of men she has gathered round her. Everyone pays her homage. She is a cousin of the Dolgoroukis.” ‘Let us go nearer and look at her,” said the lawyer, whose eyes, however, were fixed, not on the Princess, but on one of the gentlemen standing near her—on Count Cioronskl. The cousin of the Dolgoroukis, in her ugliness, in her fatness, in the blaze of her jewels, recalled nothing so much as some Eastern idol. She had the same air of-plethoric complacency, and sat in the same immovability to be worshipped. At the moment that Signor Renzo and his partner approached her, she was engaged in the deliberate consumption of an ice. <A circle of devotees watched this sublime operation respectfully. The last spoonful was swallowed, and, presumably, a barely per- ceptible flicker in the eyelet holes set above the putty of the Princess’s cheeks, conveyed to the lookers-on that she wished to be relieved of the empty saucer. Two or three gentlemen precipitated themselves, but the honour fell to Count Cioronski. Only he was hurried, and seized the glass with his left hand. “Let me put it down for you,” said the urbane tones of Signor Kenzo, behind him. ‘ Have you hurt your other hand?” he added, in sympathetic inquiry. “Monsieur!” exclaimed the Count haughtily, and shot at the officious stranger a withering glance. “That was a very unfortunate inspiration of yours,” laughingly said Hildegarde, asshe hurried the young man away. ‘He is left- handed, but nothing makes him so angry as for people to remark it.” ‘People are not blind. I was sure that I had noticed it myself at the trial,” answered Signor Renzo, and the Grafin noticed with sur- prise that he had actually turned pale. “TI find it difficult to believe,” said the King’s Proctor. ‘To me it seems that nothing can well be clearer,” replied Signor Renzo, calmly. ‘“ His sister-in-law’s own statement, made to a number of people, proves that she wrote such letters to the Count as would ECONNICLOOKS.EO