Her deep, hearty laugh rang infectiously. Even Richard joined in, and Manon, albeit not quite sure whether the mother of Mrs Dolph Carew ought not to recoil with more dignity from these trifling incidentals of dusk and Tube corners. As for David, he vowed she was adorable.
“Ah, but the Comtesse—there is one! Vonderful! You vait and see her? Yes? She lonch with me to-day—her birthday.... I tell you, a great affair. We all lunch together? And you, who lof that Continent of ours, you shall eat——” She whispered to David, her arm encircling his khaki; his thin face vivid with appreciative reminiscence, as she reeled off the names of what Richard emphatically, but in silence, registered as “foreign muck.”
The Comtesse arrived, and La llorraine, shedding all bourgeoise preoccupation with the menu, welcomed her as an exiled ambassadress welcomes exiled royalty.
The two ladies kissed a great many times, with rapid interchange of cheeks, and uttering short staccato exclamations; and then held each other a short way off for mutual and admiring survey.
The Comtesse was large, and wore a black picture hat on her crude vermilion chevelure; a mustard-coloured coat and skirt, and a pink ninon blouse crossed by a spray of limp cotton poppies that looked as though they had passed their lives pressed close to a stiff shirt-front. She exhausted so much space in her vicinity, magnetically as well as materially, that her fellow-beings were wont to move some distance away to avoid being absorbed by suction.
“My dee-urr,” said La llorraine solemnly. “Never—never—never haf I seen you looking so well as in that blouse....”
She introduced David and Richard with a great deal of ceremonial; and the Comtesse put her hand to her heart and gasped that they both reminded her of Antoine, mon fils. “That one, in particular,” indicating David, “is his living image. I vow, he might be his brother.”
“I rejoice that is not the case, Madame, since it would deny the possibility of any more gallant relationship between you and me.”
“Mon Dieu—quel garçon!” the Comtesse delightedly flicked him across the cheek. And Richard marvelled at his friend’s fluent impudence. But this was the atmosphere in which David revelled.
The company sat down to lunch, and La llorraine apologized with sad dignity for her so humble apartment and for inadequacy of service. Generously the Comtesse reassured her that where loyalty and ancient friendship existed, the third footman might quite well be lacking. Then reverting to the question of the blouse—