"I think you would."
"You've not half such good reason to think it as I have." She rose, walked to the hearth-rug, and stood facing the grate, her back turned to him. She seemed to him to be looking at a photograph which he noticed now for the first time on the mantelpiece, the picture of a stout elderly man with large clean-shaven face and an expression of tolerant shrewdness. Marchmont moved close to her shoulder and looked also. Perceiving him, she half turned her head towards him. "That's my husband's right-hand man at Henstead," she said. "They understand each other perfectly."
"He looks a sharp fellow."
"So he may be able to understand Alexander? Thank you. I like to have his picture here." Suddenly she turned round full on him, stretching out her hand. "I wish you'd go now," she said. "Have you turned stupid, or don't you see that you must leave me alone, or—or I shall say all sorts of things I mustn't? That man on the mantelpiece there typifies it all. Bless his dear old fat face! I like him so much—and he's such a humbug, and I don't think he knows that he's in the least a humbug. Is sincerity just stupidity?" Her mirth broke out. "Alexander hates my having him there," she whispered; then she drew away, crying, "Go, go."
"I'm off," said he. "But why doesn't Quisanté like the old gentleman's picture, and why do you keep it there if he doesn't?"
"And why are none of us perfect—except perhaps the Mildmays? Good-bye." She gave him her hand. "Oh, by the way," she went on, calling him back after he had turned, "have you ever had anything to do with promoting companies or anything of that kind?"
"Well, no, I can't say I have."
"Is it necessarily disreputable?"
"Oh, no," he smiled. "Not necessarily. In fact it's an essential feature in the life of a commercial nation." He was mockingly grave again.
"Thank you very much, Mr. Marchmont. An essential feature of the life in a commercial nation! That's very good." She broke into a laugh. "Now I've got something agreeable to say," she said. He did not move till she shook her head violently at him and pointed to the door. As he went out, she turned back to Mr. Foster's picture, murmuring, "It's no use my setting up for a martyr. Martyrs don't giggle half the time." Had Marchmont heard her, the word "giggle" would have stirred him to real indignation; it was so inappropriate to that low reluctant mirth-laden laugh of hers, which seemed to reveal the feeling that it mocked and extorted the pity that it could not but deride. It sounded again as she stood looking at old Foster the maltster's picture there on the mantelpiece where Quisanté did not like to see it.