"Certainly. Madame has initiated me. But you will understand that I don't display my accomplishment to every one."
"No—don't," said Hubert, a trifle gravely.
She looked round at him with a pretty defiance in her eyes and a laugh upon her face.
"Don't you approve?" she said mockingly. "Ah, you have yet something to learn! It is quite evident that you have been spending Easter in the country, and its gentle dulness hangs about you still."
"Gentle dulness!" Hubert thought involuntarily of Enid. Yes, the term fitted her very well. Timid, gentle, dull—thus unjustly he thought of her; while, as to Cynthia—whatever Cynthia's faults might be, she was not dull—a great virtue in Hubert's eyes.
"I think you could make me approve of anything you do," he said, as he rose in obedience to her invitation to light his cigar. "Some people have the grace of becomingness; they adorn all they touch."
"What a magnificent compliment! I will immediately put it to the test," said Cynthia lightly. She had also risen, and was examining a little silver box on the mantelpiece. "Here Madame keeps her Russian cigarettes," she said. "I have not set up a stock of my own, you see. Now give me a light. There—I can do it quite skilfully!" she said, as she placed one of the tiny papelitos between her lips and gave one or two dainty puffs. "Now does it become me?"
"Excellent well!" said Hubert, who was leaning back in an enormous chair, so long and deep that one lay rather than sat in it, and regarding her with amusement. "'All what you do, fair creature, still betters what is done.'"
"Then I'm content," said Cynthia, seating herself and holding the cigarette lightly between her fingers.
She still kept it alight by an occasional little puff; but Hubert smiled to see that her enjoyment of it was, as a humorist has said of his first cigar, "purely of an intellectual kind." She enjoyed doing what was unusual and bizarre—that was all. He wondered whence she sprang, this brilliant creature of earth with instincts so keen, desires so ardent, mind and imagination so much more fully developed than was usual with girls of her age. Cynthia's beauty was undeniable; but even without beauty, save that of youth, she would have been striking and remarkable.