“People have spoken of them before me—and always à coin de l’œil.”
“Well, we won’t speak of them, with a leer or otherwise. Shall we have a cigarette, Cousin? I am of an inquisitive nature, and I have been to all sorts of places in quest of information. Once, when I was a young man, I was seized with an idea that it would be well for me to harden myself to the sight of physical mutilation, so I got a professional friend to take me to the operating theatre of a hospital. I didn’t want to go again; and I am content, also, with my one visit to the students’ ball. The impression I brought away from each was something of the same sort—an orgy of crucified human nature.”
Still leaning on one hand, and drawing casually at her cigarette, she came out suddenly with a startling question:—
“Who was your particular petite ouvrière when you were a student? Was she very pretty?”
I actually started to my feet.
“You can assume anything you like,” I said—“my badness, or my goodness, or my utter ordinariness, which would be the normal mean: only bear in mind that it is all assumption.”
She gave the tiniest insolent laugh, wafting a puff of smoke away with her hand.
“I will tell you what I think of you,” she said; “and why, according to your own statement, your present is happier than your past. It is because with your restless, volatile nature you are incapable of developing a lasting attachment, and your age now saves you from any fear of being importuned for your own sake.”
I burst out laughing. “True,” I said; “at my years a man should have come to easy terms with himself as to his own superannuation; and perhaps also he should have learned to look a little deeper than the beauty peu profond for his soul’s satisfaction.”
“O, that is rubbish!” Fifine exclaimed.