Missing sight of
them in the throng for a minute, he had followed on to the principal
supper-room, and not finding them there (for the reason the reader
wots of) had returned on his steps, and was sitting on the end of a
divan, by the door of the next room to the ball-room, through which
all had to pass who wished to go thence to the supper-room. There
were people passing through the centre of the room from door to
door; but there was no other, save the Marchese, sitting down in it.
There the Conte Leandro found him, and came and sat down by his
side; much, at first, to the Marchese's annoyance.
"What! you not in the supper-room, Signor Leandro. I thought your
place was always there?" said the Marchese.
"I'm no greater a supper-eater than another; let them say what they
please. But I have just been getting a glass of wine and a biscuit
in the little supper-room at the further end there."
"What, are there two supper-rooms? I did not know that!"
"Only a buffet in the little room at the end, where the papers
generally are. It was mainly Ludovico's doing,--in order to have
less crowd in the supper-room,--and perhaps to have a quiet place
for a tete-a-tete supper himself. Oh! I knew better than not to
clear out, when he and La Diva Bianca came in; specially as there
was nobody else there.
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