“No, madam,” replied Mr. Cole, who had now shaded from a red to a pink.
“And did I not have the pleasure of seeing you at the Campdown races the other day?”
Mr. Cole turned pale and nearly dropped off his chair. The Colonel roared out his pleasant cheery laugh.
“No madam, you did not.” Mr. Cole made his denial so emphatic that he was ashamed of himself for it afterwards.
“But you, Miss Berkeley, were there. My cousin Ahlberg saw you. He praised you. He complimented you. ‘I have often seen that face,’ he said. ‘There are some faces which one remembers even in the whirl of the greatest cities. I drive around the Bois de Boulogne—once—twice—three times. I speak to a hundred friends. I see a thousand faces. They pass before me like shadows of the night. One face strikes me. It rises like a star from out the sea. Ah, I exclaim, ‘here is another photograph for my mental portrait gallery.’”
Neither the Colonel nor Olivia was fully prepared to accept Ahlberg. Consequently, Madame Koller’s remark was received with a cool smile by Olivia—and a sniff by the Colonel. But Mr. Cole was quite carried away by Madame Koller’s declamatory manner, and her really beautiful voice.
“What a gift of tongues,” he said. “Madame Koller, if a—er—public speaker—a religious instructor had your felicity of expression—”
“I trust,” answered Madame, “some time to have the pleasure of hearing your felicity of expression. I am not what you call a Christian. I believe in a system of ultimate good—a philosophy if you will—”
“Yes, yes,” cordially chimed in Colonel Berkeley with something dangerously like a wink, “I knew Madame, as soon as I saw you that you believed in a system. It’s very useful and elastic and philosophic.”
Madame playfully waved her hand at the colonel, and turned to Mr. Cole.