'But, Madame, I cannot allow you to make an enemy out of me!'—said Manisty to the Contessa, resuming the conversation. 'When you talk to me of this Country and its future, vous prêchez un converti.'
'I thought you were the Jonah of our day,' she said, with her abrupt and rather disdainful smile.
Manisty laughed.
'A Jonah who needn't complain anyway that his Nineveh is too ready to hear him.'
'Where is the preaching?' she asked.
'In the waste-paper basket,' said Manisty, throwing away his cigarette.
'Nowadays, apparently it is the prophets who repent.'
Involuntarily his eye wandered, sought for Lucy withdrew. She was hidden behind her work.
'Oh! preach away,' cried the Contessa. 'Take up your book again. Publish it. We can bear it.'
Manisty searched with both hands for his matches; his new cigarette between his lips.
'My book, Madame'—he said coolly—' outlived the pleasure its author took in writing it. My cousin was its good angel; but not even she could bring a blunder to port. Eleanor!—n'est-ce pas?'