Heaven was a trifle chilly when, after all this patient waiting, he reached its portals. Gertrude was like frozen honey. She met him in an exquisite morning confection of the latest Parisian design—a something, to the uninstructed male eye, between a peignoir and a tea-gown, but of costly simplicity, and of colours cunningly suited to match Madame’s complexion in the daylight. The table was exquisitely appointed, but to Paul’s dismay the couverts laid upon it were as for apart as the length of the table would permit. He looked so comically discomfited at this discovery, and his face so easily expressed his disappointment, that Gertrude laughed and relented.
‘Well, M. Paul,’ she said, still laughing, ‘I will make a side-dish of you,’ and with her own pretty hands she re-arranged the table, assigning him a position with great demureness in the exact centre of it.
Paul would have made at least an effort to break through the crust of sweet ice which enveloped her this morning but for the presence of a piquante small brunette of a waiting-maid, who stood on guard, as it were, over a service-table at the end of the apartment.
‘My maid,’ said Gertrude, ‘neither speaks nor understands a word of any language but her own, but I can assure you that she has eyes, and can use them. She invariably attends me at breakfast, and to send her away would be——’
She paused.
‘What would it be? said Paul. ‘Surely Madame la Baronne de Wyeth has the right to choose what form of service she pleases at her own table?’
‘Madame la Baronne,’ replied the lady, with a slight curtsey, ‘has chosen.’
‘But surely, Gertrude——’ Paul began.
She stopped him with a significant gesture of the hand.
‘Not my Christian name this morning, if you please. And remember,’ she added, ‘my little watch-dog there has eyes, as I have already told you, and though she knows nothing of English, I should guess her to be a very fair judge of tone. Come now, you stupid boy,’ she continued in a voice so level and cool that no one who did not understand her words could have guessed their purport, ‘I will make a bargain with you. If you will be kind to me, I will be kind to you. If I receive here a distinguished and handsome young Englishman all alone—if in order to receive him I make a marked alteration in my household appointments—— Come, now, is it worth while to go on with that?’