"Ah! it has been so very, very agreeable, your party, most dear friend," she said in her pretty careful English, taking her hostess's hand in both hers. "I find myself quite sorrowful that it should be at an end. I could say 'and please how soon may we begin all over again' like my little Bette when she too is happy."
"Dear child, dear child," Anastasia returned affectionately, almost wistfully, for nostalgia of youth is great in those who, though bravely acquiescent, are no longer young.
Gray hair happened to be the fashion in Paris this season. About a week previously Miss Beauchamp had mysteriously closed her door to all comers. To-day she emerged gray-headed. This transformation at once perplexed and pleased her many friends. If it admitted her age, and by lessening the eccentricity of her appearance made her less conspicuous, it gave her an added dignity, strangely softening and refining the expression of her large-featured, slightly masculine face. Just now, in a highly ornate black lace and white silk gown, and suite of ruby ornaments set in diamonds—whereby hung a tale not unknown to a certain hidden garden—Anastasia Beauchamp, in the younger woman's opinion, showed not only as an impressive but as a noble figure.
"Ah yes, and you should know, Colonel 'Aig," the latter continued, the aspirate going under badly in her eagerness, "since you have not for so long a time seen her, that it is always thus with Mademoiselle Beauchamp at her parties. She produces a mutual sympathy between her guests so that, while in her presence, they adore one another. It is her secret. She makes all of us at our happiest, at our best. We laugh, but we are also gentle-hearted. We desire to do good."
"That is so," Byewater put in nasally. "I indorse your sentiments, Madame St. Leger. When I came over I believed I should find I had left the finest specimens of modern woman behind in America. But I was mistaken. Miss Beauchamp is positively great."
"And—and me, Mr. Byewater?" Gabrielle asked with a naughty mouth.
"Oh! well, you—Madame St. Leger," the poor youth faltered, turning away modestly, his countenance flaming very bright red.
"I require no assurances regarding our hostess's brilliant social gifts," Rentoul Haig declared, mouthing his words so as to make himself intelligible to this foreign, or semi-foreign, audience. "My memory carries me back to—"
"The year one, my dear Colonel, the year one," Anastasia interrupted—"the old days at Beauchamp Sulgrave. Great changes there, alas, since my poor brother's death. Between Death Duties and Land Taxes, my cousin can't afford to keep the place up, or thinks he can't, which amounts to much the same thing. He is trying to sell a lot of the farms at Beauchamp St. Anne's hear.
"England is being ruined by those iniquitous Land Taxes, I give you my word, Miss Beauchamp, simply ruined. Take Beauchamp Sulgrave, for instance. Perfect example of an English country-house, amply large enough yet not too large for comfort, and really lovely grounds. Just the type of place that always has appealed to me. I remember every stick and stone of it. I give you my word, I find it difficult to speak with moderation of these Radical nobodies, whose thieving propensities endanger the preservation of such places on the old hospitable and stately basis. I remember my regiment was in camp at Beauchamp St. Anne's—I am afraid it was in the seventies—and your party from Sulgrave used kindly to drive over to tea, regimental sports, and impromptu gymkhanas. Charming summer! How it all comes back to me, Miss Beauchamp!"