'Can you imagine yourself in love with Baron von Elmur?' she asked.
'Were you laughing at that?' inquired the other incredulously.
'Yes,' with another little laugh.
'Ah! the devoted papa has been writing of Baron von Elmur?' said the Countess, with an arch smile.
'But, I can understand being in love with von Elmur! He is—difficult. Men no longer in their first youth are much the more interesting. The love of a young man is simple, he says what he means; but when he grows older it is not so. By that time he has gathered memories, enlightenment, experiences; and he begins by thinking he knows one through and through. And why?—because he knows other women—and them how imperfectly! As if we were not as various as the colours in the old Sagan diadem! Each woman is made differently, and each reflects her own colour. To teach a man—old enough to appreciate it—this little fact about ourselves is, I assure you, never a dull amusement.'
Valerie paused before she spoke.
'Now I know why you are married, Isolde!'
'Ah, yes; but I was too young to realize that Sagan is a bear who cannot be taught to dance. I had just left school. I could not choose. But you, Valerie, you have a future before you! Poor Anthony, like all other young men, is desperately in earnest, he gives one the blues. I know he already bores you; but von Elmur——Ah, that is altogether another affair!'
Madame de Sagan sank down beside a little buhl-table, and tapped on it impatiently with her slight fingers. Against the light of the afternoon glow she watched the outline of Valerie's cheek. For Mdlle. Selpdorf had returned to her contemplation of the landscape. A curl of blue smoke from among the trees on the nearer bank of the Kofn held her gaze and suggested thoughts, which she was taking up one by one, as it were, and examining soberly enough.
Rallywood had been stationed at Kofn Ford when first Isolde made his acquaintance. The girl recalled a description she had heard of the tall young Englishman galloping along the flat road to the rescue of the pretty, terrified Countess, whose Arab had been merely cantering along, capering now and again from sheer light-heartedness and without malicious intent, until its timid rider chose to scream, when it reared and started with flying hoofs towards the marshes. Valerie went on to picture Rallywood holding the trembling woman on her saddle till her escort and grooms overtook them, and at the picture the girl's lip curled and quivered with angry scorn—of a sudden she hated and despised them both, but especially she despised Rallywood for having succumbed to Isolde's shallow beauty! Thus it will be seen that Mdlle. Selpdorf was inclined to under-rate Madame de Sagan's points. Isolde was not only wonderfully pretty, but she was endowed with a superficial cleverness, and kindliness and tact, all of which rendered her irresistible to nine men out of ten. A moral chameleon, Isolde almost always believed in herself and her own moods, therefore it was little wonder that the men whose phases of humour she reflected believed in her also, and moreover thought her as adorable and as full of delicious changes as Cleopatra.