was with difficulty maintained by adjurations and whip-crackings from the coachman, before we began to make the further discovery that we had already bored our hostess almost to tears. We cannot be surprised at it; the penetrating regret that we had ever started on the expedition would have paralysed our powers even of English conversation, and Ollendorff’s earliest exercise is a thrilling romance when compared with the remarks that we churned arduously forth for Madame de Q.’s benefit.
It is true that she gave us no assistance. She leaned back and answered our questions without an effort either to appear less ennuyée than she was, or to amplify her replies, while her eyes strayed from time to time to the novel that lay on the seat beside her—‘Les Confessions de some one or other. Par la Comtesse Dash,’ or some very similar title. She would not even discuss Mademoiselle, whom we played as our trump-card early in the game; in fact, she had never even seen her. Mademoiselle had been the governess of her stepdaughters, and had left before Madame’s marriage with Monsieur de Q. The old landau rumbled slowly on, up and down hill, with the interminable vineyards on either hand, and occasional hamlets with houses crowded close to the white dusty road. At one of these, brightly-coloured electioneering posters of some local hero seemed to offer something to talk about.
‘Nous avons à Londres,’ said my cousin very slowly and distinctly, breaking what had been a long and nerve-trying silence, ‘tant de ces—a—postiches.’
‘Pardon?’ said Madame, with a certain languid interest; ‘je ne vous ai pas compris, mademoiselle.’
‘Oh, sur des murs, vous savez,’ said my cousin, wavering a little; ‘des postiches, comme cela,’—she indicated another orange-coloured placard.
‘Ah!’ Madame smiled very faintly. ‘Des affiches, peut-être?’
Then it occurred to us that a postiche was a name for a small pad for the hair, and humiliation almost overbore our usual feeble necessity of laughter.
‘NOUS AVONS A LONDRES TANT DE CES—A—POSTICHES.’