In which L'Aiglonne makes an appearance on the newsgroup alt.drwho.creative as presenter for the Best Series or Story Arc category of the Adric Awards - with a little help from the twins Hilde and Linde - and Danik's bride receives a belated wedding-present.
* * * *
Black.
In the first moments of music, we see only black.
Not the ebony velvet of a horse's hide, or the blue-black sheen of raven's wings in flight, but the true cold obsidian glint of solid glass - for such it is, spreading wider and wider now as we pull back and the first reflections begin to twinkle in the vast expanse, like starlight spangles far above.
The polished pool of a mirrored dance-floor spills almost out of sight, like the overflow of some fathomless treacle-mine unquenched for slow millennia. High overhead and one by one, glimpsed only in their glimmer below, the spotlit constellations are starting to shine.
Standing a little to one side, caught now into sight as if held in a column of light, a woman is poised, waiting. He hair is piled and braided high at the back of her head, a few dark locks falling to the nape of her neck, and she stands a little awkwardly, hands clasped at her waist below the loose-fronted gown. But there is pride in every line of her, and a deeper bloom beneath the warm colour of her cheeks and the smile in the dark, dancing eyes. Ernestine von Schelstein - née de Roncourt, dite L'Aiglonne - has never been, can never be called a Beauty. But now, as a wife, she holds the eye as never before.
The music changes, and L'Aiglonne begins to walk forward, gown spilling around her as she moves with a somewhat heavy grace. The pale folds of her dress are mirrored in the flawless glass beneath her, and our view swoops for a moment down... and then up, following her gaze, as she reaches out with both hands, shimmering silk falling back from her arms, and the first dancers come down from beneath the towering curtain to meet us.
It is impossible, now that we see it, to imagine that such a swathe of cloth can ever not have existed. It occupies centre-stage, soaring up to some unimaginable height three, or perhaps four, storeys above us and beyond our view, a great cascade of gathered gold like a hundred pavilions of the Arabian Nights all rolled into one.
And it is rising. The lowest folds, no longer brushing the ground, are beginning to unveil the sweep of a spiral stair beneath. Twenty silver-clad young men are springing up from the lowest step, moving in perfect unison into the first lilting measures of the dance. They flow out towards L'Aiglonne like the filigree network in the setting for a jewel, showcasing her, surrounding her, and she laughs, and holds out her arms to meet the steadying hands as she is lifted, borne up, and away.
Up, and around in the wide white steps of the rising stair, as the curtain lifts silently above. Dancers coming down to meet us, girls in rose and cream and lilac, skirts blossoming around them as they sink to the ground, and men in silver and palest blue. It is a great tide that sweeps downwards only to eddy and carry us up, filling the stairs as the music soars ahead.
And we are still rising. Another turn, and yet another. Girls like flowers, golden-tressed and dark and red - surely there cannot be so many dancers in all the world? A tumbling waterfall of blue and silver like a brook through the meadows, as their partners spring from hands to feet with casual, prodigal grace among the crowd.
This surely must be the last turning. We are pulling back - back, until we can barely see L'Aiglonne, her laughter the dark warmth at the heart of what has become a staggering spectacle, the veiling curtain risen almost out of sight, and beneath it rank after rank of dancers, sunk down now among a billow of skirts from the girls. All eyes and arms are reaching upwards as somewhere, backed by this vast choir, an elegant but eloquent tenor is singing that music would open his eyes, showing the skies golden with rapture...
Golden? Yes. With rapture? Perhaps... for we are now looking almost directly upwards, past tier after tier of silken limbs and soaring song, to the huge unfurling canopy of the pavilion folds above, where once the far lights twinkled. The shining cloths of heaven have covered the vault in truth; and the sheer scale of it all is enough to batter any remaining killjoys into helpless, joyous wonder.
There is only one discordant note, as our view begins to sweep in at last to crown the topmost tier. Two young voices, in aggrieved whispers: more audible perhaps than they realise as the choir sinks to its final anticipatory hush, and the soloist holds his high note on a pianissimo with almost seamless skill.
"Well, I think it was a mean trick to send us now, when Tantchen Tine can't possibly have any adventures -"
"Oh come on, you silly, you know that wasn't going to happen -"
"'When the Count's own lady invites you' - it was a promise, I tell you! Just because no-one thought Danik would ever take a bride, and then he did, that very same year -"
"And we're here, aren't we? D'you think we'd ever have got to come in a million years if it hadn't been for that promise?"
"I thought it was going to be exciting." The whisper is sullen. "With Tine sailing as bo's'n, and gun-battles, and apes and ivory -"
"You're standing on top of the biggest wedding-cake in the world, and you think this is boring?" Enough scorn to cut through canvas. "You think -"
But any further scope for thought is cut off by a squeak of consternation. "We're on - Linde, we're on!"
And so they are.
Revealed at last - as the music swings into a new, jaunty tune and their 'Tantchen' Ernestine, the vanguard of her entourage, and our own viewpoint arrive simultaneously on the open ring that is the hidden crest of the staircase - are Hilde and Linde Osman, neat as two pins, in twin sailor suits. With dark curls tied back and hastily-composed faces, they make grave bows to right and left of what they clearly regard as a grand theatrical stage, turn to face one another and perform a final grave courtesy that is somehow more reminiscent of an opponents' salute before a duel... and then, as the music suddenly speeds up a hundred-fold, launch into a wildly energetic leaping and stomping dance. L'Aiglonne, watching, with a smile, is not the first to begin to clap out the rhythm; but she is soon leading the intricate patterns of the beat as the two young figures at the centre of the circle whirl and jump.
If it's not, in fact, an Addams-esque Mamoushka they are performing, then it must be some even wilder and more authentic Transsylvanian cousin. They have to have been practising this for weeks... or perhaps for years, for surely one has to be born to it to achieve such feats. Perfectly matched as perhaps only twins can ever be, Hilde and Linde never miss a step, a toss or even a dagger-blade. Only their grins shine brighter than the naked steel they have somehow contrived to produce: and if Hilde really feels, as she has whispered, that this is not exciting enough for her, then she is doing an incredibly good job of concealing it.
The two girls from the remote mountain village are the centre of all attention - even as we pull back and upward until sweep after sweep of staircase surrounds them, and then, finally, seen from above, the great sea of depthless black. They are only twin flicker-points of light now, flashing swiftly back from the blades as they spin over and over at the heart of it... and then the blackness flows smoothly in as the picture narrows above them, like grains of sand, and last of all they are gone.
"And the winners?"
Linde sounds a little breathless when we find her again, sitting with her cheek leaned up against the side of the gilded chair in which L'Aiglonne is enthroned, with Hilde curled up at the other side and the two of them like a pair of impish Cupids framing an ornate carriage-clock. But they are alone together now, seated on what is no more than a simple wooden stage, the plain of glass and the towering stair having vanished out of sight like no more than the twinkle in some future Busby Berkeley's eye.
"And the winners we are to announce, Tantchen Tine?" Hilde echoes.
L'Aiglonne smiles again at the prompt, and rises to her feet, steadying herself a little clumsily on the arms of the chair. The girls scramble up in turn, a couple of eager terrier pups watching and waiting for the moment when they will be unleashed.
"The contest was for the best Series or Story Arc," L'Aiglonne states for the benefit of the audience. She has barely raised her voice, but it is trained to carry, and every word has suddenly become clear as a bell.
"I can say now that there were only four prizes, for third place was taken in an even match by Brad Willis -" here she enunciates carefully - "and Helen Fayle, for their drabble sequences 'Spring Surprise', where the Doctor is turned into a woman and kidnapped by sky pirates -" one arched dark eyebrow has begun to edge incredulously upwards just a little at this point, in a gesture of Danik's which is evidently more catching than she has yet realised - "and 'Sympathy for the Devil', where Sarah-Jane arrives at a new kind of peace with the Master."
A 'Hmph' is heard at this point from the audience, but it is unclear whether it is directed at the author of this inaccurate plot summary or at the antics of the twins, who have sprung into action. Between them they are simultaneously miming Japanese sky-pirates, Lo-Shon's pursuit of a reluctant male Nyssa, Sarah-Jane trying to appear indignant, and a long-nosed and rather mischievous-looking nemesis. The last of these impressions is a particularly good one and draws appreciative chuckles from the several incarnations of the Master present tonight.
"The fourth of the prizes," L'Aiglonne is continuing as the sound from the audience dies down, "is awarded to Paul Gadzikowski -" this one she pronounces fluently Slavic-fashion - "for his latest Peri Arc, in which Peri Brown embarks on a quest to find her father, and after deeds of much daring saves the world."
No-one in the audience, including Paul, is quite certain whether the lady has actually been made aware of the crossover/satire elements of the arc in question, or whether she really is taking it at face value. Frankly - given the way the twins are going at it hammer and tongs, having chosen (unsurprisingly) to act out Peri and Taliesin's duel, including the part where the villain trips over a judiciously-placed knight on hands and knees behind him - none of them, including the author, could really have cared less.
"Second place -" L'Aiglonne breaks off for a moment, as Hilde, having executed a somewhat over-enthusiastic imitation of Taliesin knocking himself cold, sits up rather cautiously, one hand probing the dark curls for damage. Linde, running an expert hand over the back of her sister's head, shrugs in reassurance and mouths: "Go on..."
"Second place was taken by Imran Inayat, for his tales of school-children of all races and their woes," L'Aiglonne continues smoothly enough, not without a second concerned look in Hilde's direction. But she is cut off by roars of laughter from the more unrestrained portion of the audience, closely followed by helplessly-escaping giggles from most of the rest. The twins' portrayal of an adolescent Kari eyeing a succubus - headache or no headache on said 'succubus's part - is wickedly accurate, as is their execution of the infamous 'wedgie'.
Their preceptress, perhaps wisely, keeps her gaze strictly ahead and preserves her grave demeanour, though she is one of the few to succeed in doing so. "The winner," she concludes without even a tremor, "is once again Helen Fayle, for her 'Books of Taliesin', a project spanning novels, genres, and Time itself."
And as her bloodthirsty charges prepare to mime the onslaught of the furor, L'Aiglonne contrives to produce a small silver cup from the loose folds of her gown, the handles of which are a wolf's head on one side and a dragon's head on the other, and steps down into the audience to hand it to Helen in person. She bestows a murmured word of congratulation which that shrewd lady, who has been observing her closely, takes this opportunity to return.
Danik's wife flushes a little and sinks down, with a sigh of relief, into an empty place beside Paul Andinach, who has also been watching her for some time as if he wanted to say something. She gives him a lovely smile; but, for the moment, they are both taken up in watching the irrepressible twins make their exit with true showman's instinct, Linde in a series of flip-flaps and handsprings, and her sister, perhaps in deference to an aching head, engaging in nothing more strenuous than a series of cartwheels in her wake.
* * * *
For a while after the ceremony comes to an end, Paul continues staring off into space.
"I'm beginning to wish I had got around to signing up as a presenter this year," he announces to nobody in particular. "I could have roped in Donald's colleagues, used some of that backstory I always insist exists but which I never actually use." A thought strikes him. "A horror movie, maybe, with omninous owls and sinister butlers and mad wheelchair-bound koala scientists and vampire watermelons..."
After a moment, he shakes himself out of his reverie and turns to L'Aiglonne.
"Good evening," he says. "I hope you and your family are well?"
L'Aiglonne's eyes brighten, as if at a memory, and she nods. "I had a letter from Martinique but two days past."
She laughs. "Long months in the travelling, I fear. In all those wild stories of King and homeland of Danilo's telling, never once did any detail so prosaic as the mails feature; and now I may hazard as to that a guess of my own... At home, we have the season of hurricanes, which is peril enough: but here -" she breaks off with a little quizzical air, glancing around, and corrects herself - "but in Schelstein-Hortig, it seems, our poor missives have also snow, mountains, and Italian banditti - to which one may add Customs-agents, as the worst of the four - with which to contend. It is a wonder, I swear, that any word should have reached me at all!"
But her eyes are dancing with merriment, and it is clear that the shortcomings of Balkan postal services have been the cause of more amusement than of complaint. She sobers a little. "My father writes in person, trusting to no amanuensis as was his wont, and the news from Mireille is ill, though no more so than we have become accustomed of late. The harvest was poor, and the prices worse. The land is already much encumbered. Thierry will hold the estate together while he lives - but Mireille as it was in the days of my childhood, when Edmond and Emile ran wild, and the white hound Belle and I followed devoted at their heels - Mireille in its golden days will never come again. St-Pierre may prosper, but the great estates have no part in that wealth."
L'Aiglonne sighs, and for a moment Paul can glimpse in her eyes the determination of the woman who undertook to run her own company, in the teeth of all expectations and advice. "I will hold what I can for Jeannot. But I fear it will be an inheritance greater in name than in value by the time that he shall come of age..."
She has been speaking almost to herself. Now she seems to make a conscious effort to pull herself back into a cheerful mood, shrugging off worries for her former home. "But that has been long foreseen, to be sure, and is no more and no less than we had reason to expect, my father and I. And all else at Mireille goes well; my mother is in better health and has taken herself a pet, a lap-dog of which my father writes with little-disguised loathing - poor beast, I hope it may not be too much spoiled, but the tales of its antics had us in merriment as we read. The Indians wish to build a meeting-house, and my father has set aside an hour of labour a week which they may apportion as they please; he writes that their ingenuity in contriving the materials is almost beyond belief."
She glances across at Paul, and laughs. "Oh, but you have no interest in such details, Mister -"
"Paul. Just Paul." He swallows. "Actually, I -"
"Paul," L'Aiglonne repeats softly to herself, her accent turning it slightly, and for a brief hysterical moment, remembering her pronunciation of 'Brad Willis', Paul finds himself giving thanks that his own name comes easier to a French tongue.
"Actually," he manages again, "I meant, um, your new family."
"Danilo?" Her face, softened and radiant, is in that moment answer enough. Then she smiles. "He amuses himself well enough. He even begins to take some interest in his lands beyond the pride of his name -" the smile is tender now, indulgent - "when he cannot romp aside with Jeannot and the rest. Imagine to yourself, my Jehan who had never seen snow! Less fell this winter, they tell me, than the last; but to me in all conscience, it would seem more than enough."
A cloud crosses her expression. "Jehan finds no great favour with Madame la belle-mère, I fear. The old Gräfin is over-set in her ways to have patience for a growing boy, and it is hard for the pride of her lineage, to see her son love another man's child..." Her mouth tightens. "I wonder, sometimes, how Danilo grew so sweet-natured as he is; for it was not from his mother he learned it."
But the momentary hard line of her lips has already quirked upwards, irrepressible.
"Of my own person, she is pleased to approve. Being at the least, as I am given to understand, of Danilo's own religion and complexion - and even approaching near to his station in life..." L'Aiglonne shakes her head. "Eh bien, one need not love la belle-mère, but at least one should respect her. She has held that land in her son's name since her lord died, some eighteen summers past."
She moves slightly in her chair, as if trying to find a comfortable position, and sighs, smiling. "But Jeannot - he has been too long alone. Now he has other playmates, and Osman's eldest daughter has taken him to heart, being at that age when girls become motherly to a young child. Already he learns the language faster than I - who have more Dutch than Deutsch, I fear." She looks somewhat rueful. "I make shift well enough among them in my own tongue, or in English - but I would not be forever a foreigner."
There is a moment of silence, and Paul finds himself reflecting on his own small ability with the Deutsche Sprache. It was never large, and has dwindled since his schooldays to little more than "Guten tag", "Auf wiedersehen", and "Schwarzwalder Kirschtorte"; but he has never felt and is never likely to feel the lack as keenly as L'Aiglonne must do.
"Thank you for telling me," he says. "I'm glad to hear that Danik and Jehan are doing well. And Osman and his family, by the sound of it?" His gaze flicks to the stage so recently vacated by Hilde and Linde. "Though I could see already that some members of that company are in fine health and spirits..."
"Indeed," L'Aiglonne agrees, both eyebrows flying heavenward at once. "I know of only one thing more exhausting to endure than the twins' enjoyment, and that is their desolation. At Christmas-tide Hilde was caught by their mother red-handed amongst the berry-pots -"
"Strawberry, I assume," Paul interjects, unable to resist, but L'Aiglonne does not catch the joke.
"- one could not say which howled louder, the twin who was whipped or the twin who was not," she is continuing ruefully. "I warrant the noise could be heard halfway to Strelsau - I know not how two sturdy maids can brawl like a schoolboy troop entire..."
Paul glances round a little nervously in case either of the twins is in earshot, but they seem to have completely disappeared.
"I fear they lack a father's hand," L'Aiglonne is saying softly, with a tiny frown of unhappiness or concentration. "I would not change Danilo even if I could - but he and Osman are no longer boys together, to follow wherever the other shall lead with never a thought behind. He cannot take Osman forever from his home without accounting the cost; but to sail without his friend would be a wound hard for both to bear."
Paul wonders if he ought to say something; but everything he can come up with sounds hopelessly fatuous. And L'Aiglonne has started to smile - a little ruefully, but smiling all the same.
"We will find a way, the three of us," she says, with that quiet curve to her mouth. "The four of us - for Osman's lady must needs be willing to take my part. But of that I do not doubt. She is all mother to her very soul, that one - I would trust her, at need, with mine."
She sighs. "Or with that of my own child. When the little ones were ill, this winter - Katja and little Jenushka - it was Magda who nursed them, and would not have any other near, for fear of contagion, though she took the fever herself and was sorely put to it."
"Ill? The little girls? Are they all right?" Paul says quickly, but L'Aiglonne reassures him.
"Naught but a childish fever - though it took the roses awhile from Katja's cheeks. She is a sweet child, Ekaterina. She and Liesl are very like to their mother, and Liesl at least bids fair in womanhood to be a beauty."
She is laughing at herself now. "When I wed Danilo, I had not thought to gain a quiverful of adoptive nieces! But Tantchen I am to them all, and they heed me as much as they heed any."
"Speaking of when you wed Danilo," Paul says, then stops. "It seems a bit presumptuous of me, now I come to it," he remarks, "considering what short acquaintance I actually have with your husband; but he's one of those people you feel you know really well even on a short acquaintance - don't suppose I'm telling you anything new there..."
He catches sight of L'Aiglonne's expression and pauses to contemplate the tangle his sentence has become. He coughs.
"When, as I was saying, the news came that Danilo was to be married," he begins again, "I was moved to seek a gift to commemorate the occasion; but as I know nobody to whom I could entrust the task of delivering it, I had resigned myself to waiting until it should chance that his path once more crossed mine."
He pulls his backpack out from beneath his seat, and retrieves from it a small wooden box.
"I would be grateful if you would convey this to Danilo, with my compliments. It's... a family portrait, to mark the occasion of his having at last acquired a family." He hesitates, then adds: "It is a gift as much to you as to him, and I would have no objection to you looking at it now."
L'Aiglonne reaches out to touch his arm briefly. "A portrait? That was no presumption, Paul, but a very gentle thought."
She takes the box from him with deft fingers and balances it on her knee, leaning forward a little awkwardly to slide open the catch and reveal the contents. With the tip of her tongue caught back against her upper lip in unselfconscious concentration, for a moment she has the look of a child with an unexpected Christmas present.
"I hope you'll like it," Paul says, nerves on edge as he watches her face for the first hint of response. But L'Aiglonne has already turned back the lid.
The inside of the box is padded like a jewel-case in cerulean-blue velvet. Within there rests - not the enamelled miniature that, judging by her movement of surprise, she had been half-expecting from his earlier words, but a carved and painted wooden image. Its new possessor has it in her hands, turning it over with a wondering look that becomes a gurgle of laughter as she catches sight of the skilfully-depicted features on the far side. "A portrait in truth! A little Danilo-doll - but you have him here in a likeness of the most wickedly fair..."
And indeed, the craftsman has caught Count Danik's image to the very life. The figurine is more splendidly-dressed than is the Ruritanian's wont, at least on those occasions on which Paul knew him, and the bright paint of a brass spy-glass, held loosely in the left hand resting across an upraised knee, is rivalled by touches of gold at belt and throat. But the modelled pose - with one foot resting on a mossy rock to provide the figure's widening base, while the merry grey eyes gaze out, spy-glass unheeded, across fresh seas and pastures new - is every inch Danik of Ruritania.
"'Now bring me that horizon...'" Paul says, under his breath, looking from the expression on the painted face to the laughter in the face of the lady at his side.
She doesn't seem to have encountered dolls of this type before. He takes it from her, carefully, twisting the two halves apart and handing them back. "The figures are hollow - see? There is a whole family inside..."
With a soft exclamation at the ingenuity of the concept, L'Aiglonne extracts a second wooden doll from inside the first, and cannot hold back an chuckle of surprised pleasure. The inner figure has wide- spreading crimson skirts held out in both hands, as if dipping in curtsey; but the vivid hawk-face is crowned with a mass of dark hair braided back, and the hilt of a slender blade is riding at her side.
"You flatter me, I think," she murmurs, touching the painted nose with a rueful finger.
Paul shakes his head. "No," he tells her quite honestly, "it's an excellent likeness."
He is not entirely sure she takes him at his word; but she sets down the two halves of the outermost doll on the empty chair beside her, fitting them carefully back together, and twists her own wooden figure experimentally. "And inside this..?"
But even as he nods in encouragement she is pulling out a third, smaller doll, and he sees her eyes warm afresh at the image of a small, brown-haired boy, with the head of a sleepy Great Dane puppy pillowed in his lap. "And Tichot too," she says softly, looking at the dog and shaking her head with a disbelieving smile. "How could you have known..?"
Paul, not at all certain how L'Aiglonne is likely to react to a literal answer, swallows and sincerely hopes this is a rhetorical question on her part.
Apparently, it is. At any rate, she sets her own image down beside that of her husband, and touches the painted image of her son without a word, with a tender finger that traces the folds of the child's jacket as if brushing across the clothing of the living boy. She looks up.
"Paul -" And to his discomfort he sees that her eyes are bright with a sudden rush of tears.
"Wait," he says quickly to stave off the moment, taking the Jehan-doll from her and twisting it. "There's still -"
He breaks off. L'Aiglonne, catching sight of this action, has frozen, her lips half-parted. She has flushed suddenly, hotly, as if dipped in scarlet.
Her glance goes sidelong, to the tiny shape half-revealed within the smallest doll, then unconsciously down. Paul, following her gaze almost without thinking, sees, as if for the first time, the hands clasped in that instinctive, protective gesture beneath the waist of her loose gown. Remembers the careful way she has been moving all evening. Looks again at the nesting doll he has just started to open... showing what should be the youngest - current - member of the family.
The nature of L'Aiglonne's secret dawns. Paul comes, belatedly, to the same conclusion as Mistress Helen.
"Oh," he says.
The next couple of seconds threaten to be the longest of his life. He wonders, frantically, if felicitations from an individual of the male persuasion whom she's only just met are likely to be considered indelicate; decides that the answer is almost undoubtedly 'Yes'. Which leaves the problem of what on earth he's going to say next.
"Um," he manages. Taking inspiration from the little figure in his hand, he slides Jehan's upper half free and empties out the miniature lustrous shape at the dolls' core. The innermost statue is not wooden like the others, but wrought from metal that seems to gleam softly silver in the light. The delicate wings on either side of the tiny vessel quiver a little in his cupped palm, as if alive. For a moment he half-expects to see the ship he holds take flight.
"Oh," L'Aiglonne breathes, all awkwardness forgotten now in wonder, lifting the shining barque from his hand into her own with a feather-light touch. "Oh, Paul..."
She holds the gift up to the light, the filigree of the pinions trembling at her breath as if her own heart is leaping forward with the spirit of the ship, and this time the tears do spill over. She leans over and kisses him impulsively, her wet cheek against his. "Oh Paul, he will love this. He will..."
Paul smiles, feeling tears prickling at the corners of his own eyes. "That's... good to know," he says softly, swallowing the urge to thank her for being pleased.
It is with a little jolt that he realises that they are almost alone now, the last few of the audience starting to take their leave. Worried that he probably ought to be going, but unsure how to say goodbye, he looks round for inspiration. But L'Aiglonne, following his gaze, has clearly been struck in the same moment by a recollection of her own.
"Hilde and Linde... I bade them carry their romp outside, if romp they must, and I have left them far too long. They will be at some mischief if I do not make haste -"
She is 'making haste' even as she speaks, setting each statuette within the two halves of its parent ranged before her, and laying Paul's gift, reassembled, back into its sky-velvet nest. Paul scrambles to his own feet, backpack in one hand, and finds himself just too late to offer her help to rise. L'Aiglonne smiles at him, extending her fingers towards him in a parting gesture. "Good-bye, Paul."
"Goodbye," Paul says, a little distractedly, wondering if he is expected to salute the outstretched hand with his lips or if it would come across as terribly uncultured to shake it instead. Self-preservation suggests that the manly grip is less likely to go wrong.
"Goodbye," he says again, more firmly, holding out his own hand to meet hers, and finding his clasp returned, after the first moment of uncertainty, by fingers that are both stronger and more calloused to the touch than he had somehow expected. They shake hands solemnly, as if on a business deal; and he watches her go, a little heavy in her movements but still graceful, with an air of determination that suggests the errant twins may yet find themselves with some explaining in store.
The room seems smaller when she has gone; and it occurs to him ruefully, a few minutes later, that this is one more trait she shares, in her way, with the irrepressible Count.