Mme. de Gallardon then drew herself up and, chilling her expression still
further, perhaps because she was still uneasy about the Prince's health,
said to her cousin:
"Oriane," (at once Mme. des Laumes looked with amused astonishment towards
an invisible third, whom she seemed to call to witness that she had never
authorised Mme. de Gallardon to use her Christian name) "I should be so
pleased if you would look in, just for a minute, to-morrow evening, to
hear a quintet, with the clarinet, by Mozart. I should like to have your
opinion of it."
She seemed not so much to be issuing an invitation as to be asking favour,
and to want the Princess's opinion of the Mozart quintet just though it
had been a dish invented by a new cook, whose talent it was most important
that an epicure should come to judge.
"But I know that quintet quite well. I can tell you now--that I adore it."
"You know, my husband isn't at all well; it's his liver. He would like so
much to see you," Mme. de Gallardon resumed, making it now a corporal work
of charity for the Princess to appear at her party.
The Princess never liked to tell people that she would not go to their
houses.
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