‘It is convenient sometimes,’ said Othmar, a little bitterly. Why were all those past hours written on his remembrance as the chisel writes on stone, whilst she had shaken off their memories as a bird shakes a summer rain off its wings?
‘And how,’ he added with an effort, ‘with such a defective brain as you describe, have you become one of the most cultured women of Europe? Does forgetfulness of—dates—enhance the power of acquiring other knowledge?’
‘I think it leaves the brain freer,’ she answered, in that serene way which she had with her when she was intending that a man should never forget her whatever she might choose to forget.
‘No doubt,’ he said impatiently. ‘No doubt learned women have never been very tender ones.’
‘Learned! what a terrific word. Would you call a mere poor frivolous mondaine like me by the same word that described Lady Jane Grey and Mrs. Somerville? I know a few languages; I had bonnes of every nation when I was a baby; and I have read Schopenhauer and Herbert Spencer, and I assure you that one bored me as much as the other. But learned! would a bas bleu eat your strawberries or smoke your cigarettes?’
‘Or take all my heart and my soul out of me?’ he thought, as he answered, ‘No; certainly your one great science, Madame, was never learned either in the nursery, or out of Schopenhauer and Herbert Spencer. It is the perfection of high art; and you, like all supreme artists, cannot pause to remember what your studies may cost to your subjects.’
She did not ask him what art or science he meant; she lighted a second cigarette and said, in her sweetest voice, ‘I do not think you are quite so even-tempered as you used to be, Count Othmar. Look, the sun is low; it is time to be going homeward. What are Monsignore and Evelyn doing? Will you call them, please?’
‘Stay yet a little while; I have not seen you for so long,’ he murmured, ashamed and irritated at his own weakness in letting the words escape him.
‘Naturally you have not,’ she said, with a gay laugh, ‘since you have been in Asia and I in Europe. Why did you go to Asia? People do not do that sort of thing nowadays. If they be annoyed they walk down to their club and play hard, or they ride a horse at a steeplechase, and in a week they think no more about it. And why did you have that duel with de Sénélac? It was very imprudent. I had told you I could not bear that kind of melodrama. Nobody knew certainly, but that was only because they were all stupid; any one might have known. And Sénélac never left his bed for six months; and have you heard that he will limp, they say, for ever?’