Bowing to some one opposite, her very full lips parted smilingly over a set of sound strong teeth, rather uneven in outline, and of the yellowish cast often observed in persons of humble birth and arduous life.  Her dusky hair, belonging to the family of neutral-brown, was elaborately puffed and frizzed, and in her ears hung large solitaire diamonds that glowed like globes of fire, and scattered rays that were reflected in the circlet around her throat.

Beside her sat her husband, leaning back with negligent grace, and carelessly stroking his silky black moustache with one gloved hand, while the other toyed with a jewelled opera glass.  Although only two years her junior, she bore the appearance of much greater seniority, and the proud patrician cast of his handsome face contrasted as vividly with the coarser lower type of hers, as though in ancient Roman era he had veritably worn the clavus and the bulla, while she trudged in lowly guise among the hard-handed heroines of the proletarii.

Over his dreamy violet eyes arched the peculiarly fine jet brows that Mr. Palma had found so distinctive in Regina’s face, and his glossy hair and beard possessed that purplish black tint so rarely combined with the transparent white complexion, which now gleamed conspicuously in his broad, full, untanned forehead.

The indolent insouciance of his bearing was quite in accord with his social record, as a proud high-born man of cultivated elegant tastes, and unmistakably dissipated tendencies, which doubtless would long ago have fructified in thoroughly demoralized habits had not his wife vigorously exerted her exigeant guardianship.

“Have you heard the last joke at Count T——­’s expense?” said Mrs. Laurance, tapping the arm of the minister with her gilded fan.

“Do you refer to the contretemps of the masks at the Grand Ball?”

“No, something connected with Madame Orme.  It seems the Count saw her in London, became infatuated, as men always are about pretty actresses, and the first night she played here he was almost frantic; wrote a note between the acts, and sent it to her twisted in that costly antique scarf-ring he is so fond of telling people once belonged to the Duke of Orleans.  Before the play ended it was returned, with the note torn into several strips and bound around it.  Fancy his chagrin!  Colonel Thorpe was in the box with him, and told it next day, when we met at dinner.  When I asked T——­ his opinion of Madame, he answered: 

“She is perfectly divine!  But alas! only an inspired icicle.  She should be called ‘Sulitelma,’ which I believe means—­Cuthbert, what did you tell me it meant?”

“Queen of Snows.  Abbie, do lower your voice a trifle.”  He answered without even glancing at her, and she continued: 

“I wanted to see her last night in ‘Medea,’ but Cuthbert had an opera engagement, and beside, little Maud had the croup——­”