The Count bowed; Mlle. de Sacqueville-Danglars made a slight movement of the head. "You are with a beautiful person, monsieur le comte," she said. "Is she your daughter?"
"Non, mademoiselle," said Monte Fato, astonished at the young lady's temerity. "She is a spider of whom I am the guardian."
At this moment, the Count de Pérégrin appeared, without that anyone much noticed, and thanked Monte Fato yet again for saving Réginard from Vanya the vanditto.
"Tell me, monsieur le comte de Pérégrin," said Mme. de Sacqueville-Danglars, "whether you have seen at the court of Ala-Pallando of Quirithe-Oungallant, whom you served so gloriously, a costume to excel that before our eyes; not even Galadriella herself sewed the like."
"Where?" stammered Pérégrin.
"Look!" said Monte Fato, taking the other count by the arm and leaning out of the loge. At that moment, Shélobe saw the Count standing next to Pérégrin, and uttered a cry of horror that pierced the heart with poisonous despair; no hobbite, or at least none employed by the Opéra, has such a voice. The Count of Monte Fato made his excuses and returned to his loge. "Vith whom verre you sszpeahking juszzt now, lorrrd?" asked Shélobe anxiously, when he had arrived.
