At all
events, as guest after guest arrived in her over-decorated salon, she
looked up expectantly, and then resumed her expression of ugly
indifference.
"_Per Bacco!_" she muttered quite audibly enough for one to overhear,
"this crowd seems to think I have asked all Rome to supper!"
She attacked two young men of fashion as they entered. Fortunately, her
manner somewhat modified the rudeness of her words--and the ill humor of
her tone carried no conviction. "You cannot come in. I did not invite
you! I have no room!"
Instead of being angry, one, the Count Rosso, answered her in a voice
that was half jesting, half conciliatory, in the familiar second person
singular: "But thou art quite mad, my dear! We were all asked at Zizi's
supper. I, for one, call it very ungracious of you to try to dispense
with our agreeable society."
La Favorita lapsed once more into indifference. "Oh well, I don't
care"--she shrugged her shoulders--"I don't care whether you all go or
stay!"
A moment later a group that had formed at the end of the room made a
great noise, and the hostess, suddenly rousing again, swept toward them
with the floating motion of the professional dancer. "I wish you to
understand," she said in a fury, "that you are to comport yourselves in
my house as you would in the palaces of the nobility!"
The group fell into a half-sympathetic hush as she moved back again to
the door of the entrance.
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