'Good heavens!' he said to himself, as he got into the cab, 'why, if I were to send a thing like that there would be murder and suicide! She'd show it to her husband, and he'd come round and knock me into a cocked hat for it. Dear Lady Everard—she's a dear, but she doesn't know anything about anything.'
He tore the pages out of his pocket-book, and called out to the cabman the address of the Mitchells.
'Ah, chère madame, que je suis fatigué!' exclaimed La France, as he threw himself back against the cushions.
His hair was long and smooth and fair, so fair that he had been spoken of by jealous singers as a peroxide blond. His eyes were greenish, and he had dark eyebrows and eyelashes. He was good-looking. His voice in speaking was harsh, but his manner soft and insidious. His talents were cosmopolitan; his tastes international; he had no duties, few pleasures and that entire want of leisure known only to those who have practically nothing whatever to do.
'Fatigued? That's what you always say,' said Lady Everard, laughing.
'But it is always true,' he said, with a strong French accent.
'You should take more exercise, Paul. Go out more in the air. You lead too secluded a life.'
'What exercises? I practise my voice every day, twenty minutes.'
'Ah, but I didn't mean that. I mean in the open air—sport—that sort of thing.'
'Ah, you wish I go horseback riding. Ver' nice, but not for me. I have never did it. I cannot begun now, Lady Everard. I spoil all the velouté of my voice. Have you seen again that pretty little lady I met here before? Delicious light brown hair, pretty blue eyes, a wonderful blue, a blue that seem to say to everyone something different.'