"Where is the new Corinne? The Sappho of the Leucadian rock of London?
Has she met her Phaon?"
"How late you are, Amadis!" and the Duchess smiled captivatingly as she extended her hand to Jocelyn, who gallantly stooped and kissed the perfectly fitting glove which covered it. "If you mean Miss Armitage, she is just over there talking to two old fogies. I think they're Cabinet ministers—they look it! She's quite the success of the evening,—and pretty, don't you think?"
Jocelyn looked, and saw the small fair head rising like a golden flower from sea-blue draperies; he smiled enigmatically.
"Not exactly," he answered, "But spirituelle—she has what some painters might call an imaginative head—she could pose very well for St. Dorothy. I can quite realise her preferring the executioner's axe to the embraces of Theophilus."
The Duchess gave him a swift glance and touched his arm with the edge of her fan.
"Are you going to make love to her?" she asked. "You make love to every woman—but most women understand your sort of love-making—"
"Do they?" and his blue eyes flashed amusement. "And what do they think of it?"
"They laugh at it!" she answered, calmly. "But that clever child would not laugh—she would take it au grand serieux."
He passed his hand carelessly through the rough dark hair which gave his ruggedly handsome features a singular softness and charm.
"Would she? My dear Duchess, nobody takes anything 'au grand serieux' nowadays. We grin through every scene of life, and we don't know and don't care whether it's comedy or tragedy we're grinning at! It doesn't do to be serious. I never am. 'Life is real, life is earnest' was the line of conduct practised by my French ancestors; they cut up all their enemies with long swords, and then sat down to wild boar roasted whole for dinner. That was real life, earnest life! We in our day don't cut up our enemies with long swords—we cut them up in the daily press. It's so much easier!"