"I never thought about him in my life," cried Marise, exasperated. She was beginning to feel desperately tired of the mental gymnastics of such talk.
"But there was something you didn't like as I spoke about him. Don't you like men? Don't you like men to be in love with you? I do, I love it." She made another flying leap, and asked, "Are many French women like your music-teacher—so fat—no style?"
"She's not French, Madame de la Cueva."
"What, then?"
"A Levantine."
"A what? What's a Levantine?"
Marise considered, "What is a Levantine, anyhow? A little of everything, I should say, and all more or less oriental and southern. She's part Spanish, part Jewish from Asia Minor, brought up in Cairo and Paris."
Eugenia sheered off on another tack, "And who is Madame Va... Va... something?"
"Madame Vallery? She's a ... she's a sort of friend of mine. Yes, she's a friend. My old music-teacher, when I was a little girl, got us together. She's the wife of a Deputy, you know, like our Congressmen."
"Is she chic, too," asked Eugenia, "like Mrs. Marbury? Is she young? Is she pretty?"