"You don't yourself think that she'll get over it in a few months, so as to bring her back to you what she was before. I've plotted nothing, George. I should have left it altogether alone, but I have been asked to talk to you. Mme. de Lassigny is in England. She wants to see you about it. That was why I asked you to come up. She is at Claridge's. She would like you to go and see her there this afternoon. Or she would come here."
"Do you know her?"
"No. But Lady Ardrishaig does. They have met. She wrote to me. I think you ought to see her, George. You have admitted that it was all done too hastily, with him. If your objections to him are reasonable you ought to be able to state them so that others can accept them."
"It will be a very disagreeable interview, Katherine."
"It need not be. And you ought not to shirk it on that account."
"I don't want to shirk anything. Very well, I will go and see this good lady. Oh, what a nuisance it all is! I wish we'd never seen the fellow."
The telephone was put into operation, and Grafton went immediately to Claridge's. The Marquise received him in a room full of the flowers and toys with which rich travelling Americans transform their temporary habitations into a semblance of permanence. She was of that American type which coalesces so well with the French aristocracy. Tall and upright, wonderfully preserved as to face and figure; grey hair beautifully dressed; gowned in a way that even a man could recognise as exceptional; rather more jewelled than an Englishwoman would be in the day-time, but not excessively so for essential suitability; vivacious in speech and manner, but with a good deal of the grande dame about her too. The interview was not likely to be a disagreeable one, if she were allowed to conduct it in her own fashion.
She thanked Grafton pleasantly for coming to see her, and then plunged immediately into the middle of things. "You and my son hardly finished your conversation," she said. "I think you slightly annoyed one another, and it was broken off. I hope you will allow me to carry it on a little further on his behalf. And I must tell you, to begin with, Mr. Grafton, that he has not asked me to do so. But we mothers in France love our sons—I am quite French in that respect—and I know he is very unhappy. You must forgive an old woman if she intervenes."
She could not long since have passed sixty, and but for her nearly white hair would not have looked older than Grafton himself. He made some deprecatory murmur, and she proceeded.
"I have long wanted René to range himself," she said. "He will make a good husband to a girl whom he loves—I can assure you of that, for I know him very well. He loves your little daughter devotedly, Mr. Grafton. Fortunately, I have seen her for myself, once or twice here in London, though I have never spoken to her. I think she is the sweetest thing. I should adore him to marry her. Won't you think better of it, Mr. Grafton? I wouldn't dare to ask you— I have really come to London on purpose to do it—if I weren't sure that you were mistaken about him."