“In her colouring—that dark skin and red hair.”
“It is dyed.”
“Her pale face and those blood-red lips.”
“Paint.”
“Listen to her. She speaks our language with a singing accent. It sounds foreign and has a charm.”
“Her mother is an Italian and her father a Pole. In her writing she expresses the soul of France. Her husband, that very excellent H—, brought her back from somewhere. But she is well connected. I have made inquiries. But what of that? With her here any drawing-room will be like a public garden, and the invasion will begin.”
“What invasion?”
“The foreign invasion. Go and make love to her. She is as contagious as the whooping cough with you men.”
“Indeed!”
“Oh, don’t boast. You will go the way of all the others. She makes the necessary concessions.”