The door of the box was opened. Therese half turned her head and saw in the shadow Le Menil, who was bowing to her with his brusque suppleness.
“Transmit, I pray you, Madame, my congratulations to your husband.”
He complimented her on her fine appearance. He spoke to Miss Bell a few courteous and precise words.
Therese listened anxiously, her mouth half open in the painful effort to say insignificant things in reply. He asked her whether she had had a good season at Joinville. He would have liked to go in the hunting time, but could not. He had gone to the Mediterranean, then he had hunted at Semanville.
“Oh, Monsieur Le Menil,” said Miss Bell, “you have wandered on the blue sea. Have you seen sirens?”
No, he had not seen sirens, but for three days a dolphin had swum in the yacht’s wake.
Miss Bell asked him if that dolphin liked music.
He thought not.
“Dolphins,” he said, “are very ordinary fish that sailors call sea-geese, because they have goose-shaped heads.”
But Miss Bell would not believe that the monster which had earned the poet Arion had a goose-shaped head.