“I am broken-heart,” the Comtesse announced dramatically; “I can wear it not. It is over—done—finish. Behold! I throw it away!”
“Tell me,” La llorraine spoke in deep sympathy, but restraining the outflung hand from more positive operation in the direction of the ninon blouse—“what is it, then, has happened?”
“It shows the camisole—you see—it show it everywhere. Elsewhere but in this country what do I care? But my durrling, I have a lowndress”—and the Comtesse dropped her voice to a curdling whisper—“a lowndress?—No. She is a vipère....”
“Ha!” The other prima donna sprang to her feet, galvanized into opposition melodrama by the word “laundress”—“You say lowndress?—Look hee-urr!”—Oblivious of Manon, David, and Richard, she wrenched open her blouse, as Cleopatra might have done to reveal the bite of the asp. The Comtesse leant forward: “And look!” She was holding out her blouse tautly from her bosom, leaving a gap, down which La llorraine peered.... “Ah-h-h ... yes, it is so ... they are in a conspiracy—I say it! ... they destroy—they have no reverence for lace—for embroidery—for the terruly artistic lingerie!—to zem it is all calico wiz—what is it the jeune fille wear in this England?—calico wiz edging—advertised ‘durable!’” Scorn quivered to a climax, and slowly subdued; La llorraine and the Comtesse sank back into their separate chairs, and looked about them, gently smiling.
“This sauce is of an excellence,” said the Comtesse.
“Oh, my dee-urr,” La llorraine deprecated.
“My pauvre Antoine desires in his last letter to be remembered to you and to Mademoiselle votre fille,” the Comtesse recollected, sinking into melancholy over the message to Manon; Antoine, it might be gleaned by the exchange of looks between the two elder ladies, cherished a hopeless but entirely respectful passion for the erstwhile ingénue. He was nineteen, decadent and penniless ... nevertheless, La llorraine had long regarded him as a factor in her “plans” for the safe bestowal of her daughter into matrimony; plans only relegated into hasty obscurity by Dolph’s sudden accession to his uncle’s wealth.
“I have brought his letter.” His mother read aloud a few sentences that breathed such fervent affection for herself, and such rapt adoration for la patrie, that Richard turned crimson at the young Frenchman’s lack of churlish restraint, and David, catching sight of his agony, chuckled evilly.... “What’s the matter, Marcus?”
Manon subtly gave the mother of Antoine to understand that she would not object at any opportunity that offered, to renew her acquaintance with the young man, from a purely matronly standpoint ... “perhaps I may be of use to him....”