"Entrez!"
Margery had been walking, and with her entrance into the room came an indescribable suggestion of the open air. Her face was radiant, and the violets at her belt, brought suddenly from the slight chill without into the warmth of her mother's boudoir, seemed to heave a perfumed sigh of relief. The girl's brown eyes, aglow with youth and health, the proud poise of her head, and her firm hands, ungloved and guiltless of rings, were all in marked contrast to the heavy woman throned upon the divan, and languidly sniffing at her salts. It was a confronting of nature and art, unmistakably to the latter's disadvantage. Somehow, the hopelessness of her self-appointed task was more than ever apparent to the ambitious Madame Palffy.
"And where do you suppose I've been?" began Margery.
"Not to church, I know," said her mother. "I half expected to see you, but I was alone in the pew."
"No, not to church. Once a day is enough, surely. I've been with Mr. Carnby to the Jardin d'Acclimatation."
"Good gracious, my dear, what a plebeian expedition! What were you doing—visiting the serres?"
"Nothing half so dignified. We were at the menagerie, feeding the monkeys with gingernuts."
Madame Palffy simply gasped. There are some situations with which words are impotent to deal.
"Monkeys," continued Margery, "are adorable. They are sufficiently human to be typical, and then there's the advantage that one can stare at them to one's heart's content, without being thought ill-mannered. I saw lots of our friends—Mr. Radwalder, for instance, as vain as life and twice as loquacious; and one haughty young creature who held himself aloof, despising the rest, and taking no pains to conceal it. That was Monsieur de Boussac. His manner was so unmistakable that I actually found myself bowing, as our eyes met."
"Margery!"