"What a shame!" Miss Hope exclaimed. "I love titles. Do you know what I've got? An album with the coats of arms of all sorts of families and another album with patterns of silk and brocade from each of the Queen of Italy's ball-dresses. Would you care to see it?"
"Very much indeed!" Cornélie laughed. "But I must put on my hat now."
She went and returned in a hat and cloak; the German ladies and Rudyard were waiting in the hall and asked what she was laughing at. She caused great merriment by telling them about the album with the patterns of the queen's ball-dresses.
"Who is he?" she asked the Baronin, as she walked in front with her, along the Via Sistina, while the Baronesse and Rudyard followed.
She thought the Baronin a charming person, but she was surprised to find, in this German woman, who belonged to the titled military class, a coldly cynical view of life which was not exactly that of her Berlin environment.
"I don't know," the Baronin answered, with an air of indifference. "We travel a great deal. We have no house in Berlin at present. We want to make the most of our stay abroad. Mr. Rudyard is very pleasant. He helps us in all sorts of ways: tickets for a papal mass, introductions here, invitations there. He seems to have plenty of influence. What do I care who or what he is! Else agrees with me. I accept what he gives us and for the rest I don't try to fathom him."
They walked on. The Baronin took Cornélie's arm.
"My dear child, don't think us more cynical than we are. I hardly know you, but I've felt somehow drawn towards you. Strange, isn't it, when one's abroad like this and has one's first talk at a table-d'hôte, over a skinny chicken? Don't think us shabby or cynical. Oh dear, perhaps we are! Our cosmopolitan, irresponsible, unsettled life makes us ungenerous, cynical and selfish. Very selfish. Rudyard shows us many kindnesses. Why should I not accept them? I don't care who or what he is. I am not committing myself in any way."
Cornélie looked round involuntarily. In the nearly dark street she saw Rudyard and the young Baronesse, almost whispering and mysteriously intimate:
"And does your daughter think so too?"