Beecher furiously defended himself.
"Yes, that's what all you women say. You think you can catch any man. It irritates you to think any man can resist you."
"Ah, no, no," said Mme. Fornez energetically. "There are lots of men who can't be married. I don't say that, but what I say is this: a woman knows, the moment she meets one of you, if he is the kind that marries. A clever woman knows if she can marry him, but all women know if he is the marrying kind the moment they look in his eye. Is it not so, Madame Fontaine?"
"Of course," said Mrs. Fontaine calmly, with a glance around the table.
"Nonsense," said Beecher valiantly; "women are as easily fooled as men."
Mme. Fornez, drawing back her head, surveyed him critically.
"Teddy, you will marry the first pretty woman who makes up her mind to marry you," she said, tapping the table, amid laughter. "I see it; I know it."
"I say, how do you see it?" said Holliday, who was what might be called "un faux Anglais."
"It is in the eye; it responds or it does not respond," said Mme. Fornez, who shrugged her shoulders in Holliday's direction, and said: "You, you will never marry unless—unless there is one big panic. Teddy, here, has the responsive eye. I saw it at once when I said he was a nice boy. Oh, you needn't be furious and blush," she added, pulling his other ear. "It is quite right. I like you. You shall play with me. You are much nicer than Bobbie, who is all collar and cuffs."
"And Mr. Gunther?" said Beecher, to cover his confusion.