“Well—” She poked the fire, the edge of the flannel jacket hitched up by the movement, showing a section of corset laced with the golden string that confines candy boxes. “She doesn’t give you any thrill. I’ve heard people without half so much voice who could make the tears come into your eyes. I tell you what, Mrs. Drake,” she turned round with the poker uplifted in emphasis, “I wouldn’t spend my good money to hear a woman sing that way. If I shell out one-fifty I want to get a thrill.”
She was still there when the count came in. He sat between us gently rocking and eying her with a pensive stare. She pulled down her jacket and patted solicitously at the remains of her marcelle.
“She looked,” said the count, pausing in his rocking, “she looked like a queen.”
“Good gracious,” I cried crossly, “do drop her looks. I saw her.”
The count, unmoved by my irritation, answered mildly:
“One can’t drop them so easily.”
“But her singing, her performance?”
“Her performance,” murmured the young man, and appeared to look through Miss Bliss at a distant prospect. “It was good, but—”
I had to restrain myself from screaming, “But what?”
“It was not so good as she is, had none of the—what shall I say—air noble that she has.” He screwed up his eyes as if projecting his vision not only through Miss Bliss, but through all intervening objects to a realm of pure criticism. “It has a bourgeois quality, no distinction, no imagination, and she—” Words were inadequate and he finished the sentence with a shrug.