The Countess flinched and sat up. She looked considerably more wide awake.
“Ah!” she murmured. “I am here. Yes, I am here.”
“Take your time,” said Bill. “Don’t talk till you feel quite all right again.”
The Countess drew the folds of a very transparent negligee closer around her.
“It is coming back to me,” she murmured. “Yes, it is coming back.”
She looked at the little crowd grouped around her. Perhaps something in the attentive faces struck her as unsympathetic.
In any case she smiled deliberately up at the one face which clearly displayed a very opposite emotion.
“Ah, my big Englishman,” she said very softly, “do not distress yourself. All is well with me.”
“Oh! I say, but are you sure?” demanded Bill anxiously.
“Quite sure.” She smiled at him reassuringly. “We Hungarians, we have nerves of steel.”
A look of intense relief passed over Bill’s face. A fatuous look settled down there instead—a look which made Bundle earnestly long to kick him.
“Have some water,” she said coldly.
The Countess refused water. Jimmy, kindlier to beauty in distress, suggested a cocktail. The Countess reacted favourably to this suggestion. When she had swallowed it, she looked round once more, this time with a livelier eye.