"Pauvre, madame; after the bath too. I always carry this."
Marie dabbed swiftly until the streaked complexion was made cunningly perfect. Marie was out of a place—had left her last mistress, a plebeian nobody.
"With no dresses to come to me but those in violet silks or of the colour called tomato!" cried Marie. "Oh, Madame! And with no life, no gaiety, nothing but five-o'clock parties, and long luncheons, and, madame—oh, but raging when she lost at the bridge. Mon Dieu! So I left Madame. It is true one night I did put on the false plait—oh, but not carefully, for a dinner, but after a great scolding my fingers did tremble. Madame's great guest was an Eveque, what you call down Church, and strict. James the footman told me, and it was dreadful; it was to his lap the loose plait fell. I left. Madame is ravishing, and I would I were again in the service of my dear Madame."
It was easily arranged. Esmé forgot that Marie might know a little and guess more. She sent the irate Scott away immediately, and directed Marie to the house they were lodging in.
A glance at the glass had made Marie seem indispensable; a brilliantly handsome face was reflected there now, pink-cheeked, white-skinned, smooth.
"Esmé! What have you been doing? We are hopelessly late, and we are driving you."
"All my powder was washed off"—Esmé was frank, up to a certain point—"I'm sorry, Denise."
"And Cyril will bring the children; they are gone in the small car." Denise was irritated, impatient.
Sir Cyril drove; a big, pearl-grey Mercedes hummed away, nosing through traffic, sensitive as a child, eager as a hunter.
The picnic was on the cliffs, miles away. They lunched in a dazzling sun, since it is ever in the mind of man that he enjoys himself more away from his own cool dining-room, seated on hard ground in the heat.