Nadine’s eyes grew very cold.
‘I never say uncivil things,’ she answered, with an accent that was chill as the mistral. ‘But since for once you divine one’s meaning, I will not deny the accuracy of your divination.’
She blew a little cloud from a tiny cigarette as she paused. She expressed, as clearly as though she had spoken, the fact that her companion was as little to her as that puff of smoke.
‘Does sincerity count for nothing?’ he muttered stupidly.
‘Sincerity!’ she echoed. ‘Ah! English people always speak as if they had a monopoly of sincerity, like a monopoly of salt or a monopoly of coal! My dear Lord Geraldine, I am not doubting your sincerity in the very least; it is not that which is wanting in you——’
‘What is?’ he asked in desperation.
‘So much!’ said the Princess Napraxine with a little comprehensive smile and sigh.
‘If you would deign to speak definitely—’ he murmured in bitter pain, which he strove clumsily to make into the likeness of serenity and irony.
‘Oh, if you wish for details!—It is just that kind of wish for details which shows what you fail in so very much; tact, finesse, observation, flexibility. My dear friend, you are thoroughly insular! Everything is comprised in that!’