"I can't have seen Morabita for nearly three years," he went on. "And my last recollections of her are unfortunate. She had sent me a box, in Vienna it was I think, for the Traviata. She was fat then, or rather, fatter. Stage furniture leaves something to desire in the way of solidity. In the death scene the middle of the bed collapsed. Her swan-song ceased abruptly. Her head and heels were in the air, and the very largest rest of her upon the floor, bed and bedclothes standing out in a frill all around. It was a sight discouraging to sentiment. I judged it kinder not to go to supper with her after the performance that night."
Richard paused, again drained his glass.
"I beg your pardon," he said, "what atrocious nonsense I am talking!"
"I think I rather enjoy it," Madame de Vallorbes answered. She looked at the young man sideways, from under her delicate eyelids. He was perfectly sober—of that there was no question. Yet he was less inaccessible, somehow, than usual. She inclined to experiment.—"Only I am sorry for Morabita in more ways than one, poor wretch. But then perhaps I am just a little sorry for all those women whom you reject, Richard."
"The women whom I reject?" he said harshly.
"Yes, whom you reject," Helen repeated.—Then she busied herself with a small black fig, splitting it deftly open, disclosing the purple, and rose, and clear living greens of the flesh and innumerable seeds of it, colours rich as those of a tropic sky at sunset.—"And there are so many of those women it seems to me! I am coming to have a quite pathetic fellowship for them." She buried her white teeth in the softness of the fig.—"Not without reason, perhaps. It is idle to deny that you are a pastmaster in the ungentle art of rejection. What have you to say in self-defense, Dickie?"
"That talking nonsense appears to be highly infectious—and that it is a disagreeably oppressive evening."
Helen de Vallorbes smiled upon him, glanced quickly over her shoulder to assure herself the servants were no longer present—then spoke, leaning across the corner of the table towards him, while her eyes searched his with a certain daring provocation.
"Yes, I admit I have finished my fig. Dinner is over. And it is my place to disappear according to custom."—She laid her rosy finger-tips together, her elbows resting on the table. "But I am disinclined to disappear. I have a number of things to say. Take that question of going to the opera, for instance. Half Naples will be there, and I know more than half Naples, and more than half Naples knows me. I do not crave to run incontinently into the arms of any of de Vallorbes' many relations. They were not conspicuously kind to me when I was here as a girl and stood very much in need of kindness. So the question of going to the San Carlo, you see, requires reflection. And then,"—her tone softened to a most persuasive gentleness,—"then, the evenings are a trifle long when one is alone and has nothing very satisfactory to think about. And I have been worried to-day, detestably worried."—She looked down at her finger-tips. Her expression became almost sombre. "In any case I shall not plague you very much longer, Richard," she said rather grandly. "I have determined to remove myself bag and baggage. It is best, more dignified to do so. Reluctantly I own that. Here have I no abiding city. I wish I had, perhaps, but I haven't. Therefore it is useless, and worse than useless, to play at having one. One must just face the truth."
She looked full at the young man, smiling at him, as though somehow forgiving him a slight, an unkindness, a neglect.