“Yes,” replied Fair. She spoke with considerable difficulty; the royal condescension of that “Be seated” had left her feeling slightly dizzy.
“I have here a paper which will need her sharp wits—she will not be long, perhaps?”
“I don’t know,” replied Fair sombrely. Just how, she wondered, did you lead up to telling a comparative stranger that you despised him? It was harder than she had thought it would be, out there in the meadow—it was the proud turn of the black head, and the sure strength of the long brown hands, and the sheer beauty of the flashing smile that made it hard. No one had a right to look like that—and to be despicable. It wasn’t fair.
“I think that those poor Gods in Heaven must envy us our earth to-day!” said the object of her scorn, turning his face to the deep blue of the autumn sky. “So warm, so cold, so sweet—like some mad Bacchante, bare of throat and arm for all her warm fur skins, with grapes of purple weighing down her curls, and wine of gold tripping up her light heels.... Once, you know, when I was the smallest of little boys, Monsieur my grandfather call me to come down from my sleep to drink the health of my very new sister—of young Laure. There was a great banquet, a table brave with fruit and flowers and lace and candles, and they put me onto that table, and give me a little burning golden brandy to drink in a great cool glass of crystal—and straight to my head it flew—ah, Dieu, the lucky, curly head! I remember still, you see—I remember how the world must feel to-day. The world and I, we have been fortunate.”
Fair’s mouth was a rose-red line of stern distaste. It might be all very French to take a perfectly good autumn day and turn it into an intoxicated heathen, but in her opinion, which was far from humble, it was simply outrageous. And those detestable people, giving brandy to that darling little boy—well, all little boys were more or less darling. It was their truly lamentable degeneration at about the age of twenty-nine that was occupying her at present. She leaned forward swiftly, her hands very cold and her eyes very hot.
“Monsieur Philippe, don’t you ever, ever get tired of just sitting around doing nothing?”
Perhaps the passion in the clear voice touched him—for a moment Philippe le Gai belied his name. Then he made a slight gesture with the hand that held the papers, a gesture of dismissal to such folly as sober thought.
“Tired, Mistress Fairy? How should I be tired, doing nothing? And how are you so sure that I do nothing while I sit around—how are you so sure of that, I wonder?”
“Because I can see you,” replied Fair with despairing emphasis.
“Can you then, Wise Eyes? Can you see so well? Then you must see that it is not nothing that I do.”