"I should find it very uncomfortable to be anybody else," said he. "I should not know what to do."
"Then do tell me, because of course you know all about these things: Are we all going to wear slabs of jade next year? And did you see me at Princess Waldenech's wedding this morning? And who manicures you? I hear you have got a marvelous person." Seymour really wished to atone for the unfortunate remark that had broken the silence and exerted himself.
"But of course," he said. "It is Antoinette. She cooks for me and calls me: she dusts my rooms, and brushes my boots. She stirs the soup with one hand and manicures me with the other. Fancy not knowing Antoinette! She is fifty-two: by the time you are fifty-two you ought to be known anywhere. If she marries I shall die: if I marry, she will still live I hope. Now do tell me: do you recommend me to marry?"
"Doesn't it depend upon whom you marry?"
"Not much, do you think? But perhaps you are married, and so know. Are you married? And would you mind telling me who you are, as I have told you?"
"You never told me: I guessed. Guess who I am."
Seymour looked at her attentively. She was a woman of about fifty, with a shrewd face, like a handsome monkey, and his millinerish eyes saw that she was dressed without the slightest regard to expense.
"I haven't the slightest idea," he said. "But please don't tell me, if you have any private reason for not wishing it to be known. I can readily understand you would not like people to be able to say that you were seen dining with Mama. Of course you are not English."
"Why do you think that?"
"Because you talk it so well. English people always talk it abominably. But—"