“In Brazil the women eat men. No half measures. Eat you they do. Look to the right or the left and they knife you. What I can’t make out, Miss Brock, is why any men stay in England.”
Linda laughed merrily.
“Hardly complimentary to us! But you came back, you know.”
“So I did, for my old age. England’s an old man’s country.”
“You won’t get me to believe that, or René either.”
“Ah, but René can’t see things as they are. Short-sighted René is. And George is blind; isn’t he, Elsie?”
Elsie giggled. She had been wanting to giggle for some time, and the appeal to her set her off. She could not stop herself.
“Oh! Lor’!” she gasped, “you are funny, Mr. Fourmy. You ought to be in a pantomime. I never laugh like I do with you.”
And once more Elsie dominated the party. René wilted. Linda drank the many cups of tea pressed on her by Mrs. Fourmy in her nervous anxiety. Conversation flagged, sputtered, and Mr. Fourmy in desperation kept Elsie giggling with familiar jokes. Linda laughed at them too, and René sank into gloom and his mother watched him anxiously.
At five o’clock Elsie gave a little scream and said she must hurry away to see that the servant (she had no servant) had made George’s tea. She hurried away, and then, relieved of the oppression of her presence, René was just beginning to hope for better things when Linda, to escape from the table, asked if she might see the picture on the easel in the corner of the room. Delighted, Mr. Fourmy turned the picture to the light. Linda bit her lip and a dimple came in her cheek.