"Oh, by Jove!" cried Montjoie again, with something like a blush. "You've seen me in those things! I only wear them when I think nobody sees. They're something from the East," he added, with a tone of careless complacency; for, as a matter of fact, he piqued himself very much upon this smoking-suit which had not, at the Hall, received the applause it deserved.
"You go and smoke like that among other men? Yes, I perceive," said Bice, "you are just like women, there is no difference. We put on our pretty things for other ladies, because you cannot understand them; and you do the same."
"Oh, come now, Miss——Forno-Populo! you don't mean to tell me that you got yourself up like that for the sake of the ladies?" cried the young man.
"For whom, then?" said Bice, throwing up her head; but afterwards, with the instinct of a young actress, she remembered her rôle, which it was fun to carry out thoroughly. She laughed. "You are the most clever," she said. "I see you are one that women cannot deceive."
Montjoie laughed, too, with gratified vanity and superior knowledge. "You are about right there," he said. "I am not to be taken in, don't you know. It's no good trying it on with me. I see through ladies' little pretences. If there were no men you would not care what guys you were; and no more do we."
Bice made no reply. She turned upon him that dazzling smile of which she had learned the secret from the Contessa, which was unfathomable to the observer but quite simple to the simple-minded; and then she said: "Do you amuse yourself very much in the evening? I used to hear the voices and think how pleasant it would have been to be there."
"Not so pleasant as you think," said the young man. "The only fun was the Contessa's, don't you know. She's a fine woman for her age, but she's—— Goodness! I forgot. She's your——"
"She is passée," said the girl calmly. "You make me afraid, Lord Montjoie. How much of a critic you are, and see through women, through and through." At this the noble Marquis laughed with true enjoyment of his own gifts.
"But you ain't offended?" he said. "There was no harm meant. Even a lady can't, don't you know, be always the same age."
"Don't you think so?" said Bice. "Oh, I think you are wrong. The Contessa is of no age. She is the age she pleases—she has all the secrets. I see nobody more beautiful."