Aunt Clothilde turned to me. “Blaise,” she began at once, motioning me to sit down, “has asked me to dine with him. Does he dine? Has he a cook? He says so, but how do I know? What will he give me to eat? He says the dinner is for you. Since when has he taken to giving his sister-in-law dinners? He wants me to put you in countenance, and to impress his disreputable bohemian friends. He says they are all geniuses. What is a genius? Your mother-in-law thinks they all died in the seventeenth century. She may be right. How can one be sure? And why should I dine with a genius? Is that a reason? He promises me, as if it were a favour, that man Ludovic, a monster with greasy grey curls who worships an Egyptian cat. Blaise says he is a very great scholar and that you deserve a little pleasure. Will you find pleasure in his old scholar? Why should you? I’d rather have a beautiful young fool myself. It appears the family is horrid to you. Is that so? Wouldn’t let you take your child to America, eh? Well, I don’t mind having a dig at the family. Tiresome people, always splitting hairs. And you’re a good girl. You’ve got pluck, but I thought you were going to hurt Bianca that night.” She chuckled. “Well, what do you think? Shall I come to this dinner to meet your crazy friends?”
“They’re not mine, Aunt, I don’t know them.”
“You know Clémentine, she likes you. She’s all right, a Bourbon and a S—— on her mother’s side, but of course as mad as a March hare, and no morals. She doesn’t need ’em. But don’t take after her, you’ve got ’em and you need ’em. All Anglo-Saxons are like that. Take care. Of course it would be no more than Philibert deserves.”
I laughed. “You talk, Aunt, as if Blaise’s friends weren’t proper.”
“Proper, what’s that? Aren’t they just the most disreputable people on earth? Isn’t that why they’re amusing? Really clever people are never proper. It takes every drop of Clémentine’s blue blood to keep her afloat, and that man Felix! these writers with their habits of sleeping all day, Blaise tells me he is writing a play without words. It must be witty. En voilà une occasion pour faire de l’esprit. And the Spaniard, the painter, it appears that he wants to do a fresco for my music room. Well, he won’t. Only, if he doesn’t for me, he will for François. Blaise says he’s the greatest mural painter since Tiepolo. I detest that ‘Trompe l’œil’ school, but I’d like to spite François. What do you think? I’m very poor this year. I sold a forest for half its value. Now then, what about Philibert—gone to Egypt with his little salamander, has he?”
“I believe so, Aunt.”
“And you? You don’t look very sad.”
“I don’t think I am, Aunt.”
“Good, excellent; you console yourself, eh?”