THE GAME OF CROSS-PURPOSES
Mrs. Neligage escaped from her friends speedily, with that easy swiftness which is in the power of the socially adroit, and returned to the piazza by a French window which opened at the side of the house, and so was not in sight from the front of the club. There she came upon Count Shimbowski comfortably seated in a sunny corner, smoking and meditating.
"Ah, Count," she said, as he rose to receive her, "this is unexpected pleasure. Are you resting from the strain of continual adulation?"
"What you say?" he responded. Then he dropped into his seat with a despairing gesture. "Dis Eengleesh," he said; "eet ees eemposseeble eet to know. I have told Mees Wentsteele dat she ees very freesh, and—"
He ended with a groan, and a snug little Hungarian oath under his breath.
"Fresh!" echoed Mrs. Neligage, with a laugh like a redbird whisking gayly from branch to branch. "My dear Count, she is anything but fresh. She is as stale as a last year's love-affair. But she ought to be pleased to be told she is fresh."
"Oh, I say: 'You be so freesh, Mees Wentsteele,' and she, she say: 'Freesh, Count Shimbowski? You result me!' Den day teel me freesh mean fooleesh, sotte. What language ees dat?"
"Oh, it isn't so bad as you think, Count. It is only argot anyway, and it doesn't mean sotte, but naïve. Besides, she wouldn't mind. She is enough of a woman to be pleased that you even tried to tell her she was young."
"But no more ees she young."
"No more, Count. We are all of us getting to be old enough to be our own grandmothers. Miss Wentstile looks as if she was at the Flood and forgot to go in when it rained."