“I hope not that!” said Lily.
“I should expect any child of hers to be exceptionally good-looking,” went on the Frenchman reflectively.
“Would you?” Lily was rather surprised.
“Yes, for the Countess Polda must have been very handsome in her day.”
“That’s true!” exclaimed Lily. “When she came and stayed with us in England when I was a little girl, I remember thinking her the most beautiful person I had ever seen! But somehow—I don’t know why—she looks very different now.”
“It is a great art—that of knowing how to grow old gracefully,” said M. Popeau sententiously. “The Countess does not possess that art. Only a very few women do possess it, my dear young lady. As you grow older do not forget the words of Hercules Popeau—every age has its own beauty. That is not an original remark; I believe it was first made by our great Napoleon when speaking of his mother, a very noble woman.”
And then Lily, her new trouble for the moment out of her mind, went on: “The Countess says that she would like her son to marry an Englishwoman.”
“Does she, indeed? and he is arriving here to-morrow?”
M. Popeau spoke with a touch of meaning in his voice, and the colour suddenly flamed up on Lily’s face; yet she felt sure that Aunt Cosy had had no particular person in her mind when she had made that remark.
“What is the name of this prodigy?”