The amorous gaze of the disguised _daimio_ suddenly affected her with such ill-disguised mirth that the Japanese felt deeply hurt and humiliated.
'See,' she said, and to console him she detached a white camellia and threw it across the table to the envoy of the Rising Sun,--'find some comparison in praise of me!' The Oriental carried the flower to his lips with a ludicrous air of devotion.
'Ah--ah--Sakumi!' cried the little Baroness d'Isola, 'you are unfaithful to me!' He stammered a few words while his face flamed.

Everybody laughed unrestrainedly, as if the foreigner had been invited solely to provide entertainment for the other guests.

Andrea turned laughing towards Elena.
Her head was raised and a little thrown back, and she was gazing furtively at the young man under her eyelashes with one of those indescribably feminine glances which seem to absorb--almost one would say drink in--all that is most desirable, most delectable in the man of their choice.

The long lashes veiled the soft dark eyes which were looking at him a little side-long, and her lower lip had a scarcely perceptible tremor.

The full ray of her glance seemed to rest upon his lips as the most attractive point about him.
And in truth his mouth was very attractive.