“Of that I am aware.”
He turned his head slightly, with a quick, unprepared movement.
“Yes?” he said.
“Would your lordship pardon me if I should say that otherwise I should not ask your advice concerning a very young girl?”
He slightly waved his hand.
“I should have known that—if I had thought of it. I do know it.”
Mademoiselle Vallé bowed.
“The fact,” she said, “that she seriously thinks that perhaps beauty may be an advantage to a young person who applies for work in the office of a man of business because it may seem bright and cheerful to him when he is tired and out of spirits—that gives one furiously to think. Yes, to me she said it, milord—with the eyes of a little dove brooding over her young. I could see her—lifting them like an angel to some elderly vaurien, who would merely think her a born cocotte.”
Here Coombe’s rigid face showed thought indeed.
“Good God!” he muttered, quite to himself, “Good God!” in a low, breathless voice. Villain or saint, he knew not one world but many.