The Contessa Zoya seemed to be occupied with a reminiscence that amused her.  “If you have a special audience, you do, or if you go to take tea.  We had a private audience yesterday with Queen Margherita and—­I had on a long train—­and clinging.  Of course, entering the room is not hard—­I made my three reverences very nicely, very gracefully, I thought,—­one at the door, one half-way across the room, and one directly before the Queen, as I kissed her hand.  But when the audience was over, the distance between where her Majesty sat and the door of exit—­my dear, it seemed leagues!  One must back all the way and make three deep courtesies!  The first was simple, the second, half-way across the room, was difficult.  I was already standing on nearly a meter of train, and when I got to the door—­well, I just walked all the way up the back of my dress, lost my balance and fell out!”

Nina laughed at the picture, but was glad the presentation had not been like that.

“When you go to take tea with the Queen it is difficult, too,” Zoya, having begun to explain, went on with all the details that came to mind.  “Since two years Queen Elena has given ‘tea parties’ of about thirty or forty people.  Her Majesty talks to every one separately, or in very small groups, while tea and cake and chocolate and iced drinks are served by the ladies in waiting—­there are never any servants present.  It is of course charming, and the Queen puts every one at ease, but there is always a feeling that you may do something dreadful—­such as drop a spoon or have your mouth full just at the moment when her Majesty addresses a remark to you.  At the Queen Mother’s Court things are more formal—­more ceremonious.  I always feel timid before I go.  And yet no sovereign could be more gracious, and her memory is extraordinary.  She forgets nothing.  Yesterday she asked me how the baby was.  She knew his age, even his name and all about him.  She asked me if he had recovered from the bronchitis he was subject to.  Think of it!”

Nina looked long at the royal box, and could well believe the contessa’s account.  Her Majesty was talking to the Marchesa Valdeste.

Of all the older ladies to whom she had been presented, Nina liked the marchesa best.  Her face had the sweet expression that can come only from genuine kindness and innate dignity.  At a short distance from the royal box Don Cesare Carpazzi was talking to a young girl.  Don Cesare’s expression was for the moment transfigured; instead of arrogance, it suggested rather humility; both he and the young girl seemed deeply engrossed.

Tornik told Nina that she was Donna Cecilia Potensi, the little sister-in-law of the contessa in the box opposite.  He also added that Carpazzi was supposed to be in love with her, and she with him, but they had not a lira to marry on.  There were no poorer families in Italy than the Carpazzis and the Potensis.

Certainly there was nothing in the appearance of the young girl to indicate wealth, but her plain white dress with a bunch of flowers at her belt, and her hair as simply arranged as possible, only increased her Madonna-like beauty.