Mme la Comtesse rapped her knee impatiently with a much-beringed hand.
"It is some one she reminds me of," she said at last—"some one long ago, when I was younger. I never forget a face, I always prided myself on that. It was at Court—long ago—those were gay days, my friends. Ah! I have it. La belle Irlandaise, Mlle Desmond, who married— Now, who did Mlle Desmond marry? It is I who am stupid to-day. It is the cold, I think."
"Was it Henri de Rochambeau?" said De Lancy.
She nodded vivaciously.
"It was—yes, that was it, and I danced at their wedding, and dreamed on a piece of the wedding-cake. I shall not say of whom I dreamed, but it was not of feu M. le Comte, for I had never seen him then. Yes, yes, Henri de Rochambeau, and la belle Irlandaise. They were a very personable couple, and why they saw fit to go and exist in the country, Heaven alone knows—and perhaps his late Majesty, who did Mme de Rochambeau the honour of a very particular admiration."
"And she objected, chère Comtesse?" De Lancy's tone was one of pained incredulity.
Chère Comtesse shrugged her shoulders delicately.
"What would you?" she observed. "She was as beautiful as a picture, and as virtuous as if Our Lady had sat for it. It even fatigued one a little, her virtue."
Her own had bored no one—she had not permitted it any such social solecism.
"I remember," said De Lancy; "they went down to Rochambeau, and expired there of dulness and each other's unrelieved society."