“You forget,” he said. “But I—will remember.”
She did not answer, but turned with a smile to greet Paul.
“I think you know each other,” she said gracefully when she had shaken hands, and the two men bowed. They were foreigners, be it understood. There were three languages in which they could understand each other with equal ease.
“Where is Maggie?” exclaimed Mrs. Bamborough. “She is always late.”
“When I am here,” reflected De Chauxville. But he did not say it.
Miss Delafield kept them waiting a few minutes, and during that time Etta Sydney Bamborough gave a very fine display of prowess with the double-stringed bow. When a man attempts to handle this delicate weapon, he usually makes, if one may put it thus crudely, an ass of himself. He generally succeeds in snapping one and probably both of the strings, injuring himself most certainly in the process.
Not so, however, this clever lady. She had a smile and an epigram for Claude de Chauxville, a grave air of sympathetic interest in more serious affairs for Paul Alexis. She was bright and amusing, guileless and very worldly wise in the same breath—simple for Paul and a match for De Chauxville, within the space of three seconds. Withal she was a beautiful woman beautifully dressed. A thousand times too wise to scorn her womanhood, as learned fools are prone to do in print and on platform in these wordy days, but wielding the strongest power on earth, to wit, that same womanhood, with daring and with skill. A learned woman is not of much account in the world. A clever woman moves as much of it as lies in her neighborhood—that is to say, as much as she cares to rule. For women love power, but they do not care to wield it at a distance.
Paul was asked to take Mrs. Sydney Bamborough down to dinner by the lady herself.
“Mon ami,” she said in a quiet aside to De Chauxville, before making her request, “it is the first time the prince dines here.”
She spoke in French. Maggie and Paul were talking together at the other end of the room. De Chauxville bowed in silence.