"You feel like that when your tailor has done you particularly well?" asked Lady Wastwood, wickedly, looking down her long, thin nose to hide the sparks of humour in her eyes. Half a dozen pairs of ears were cocked to catch the answer, in which von Herrnung's characteristic lack of humour showed.
"Gracious Countess, certainly. It is prachtvoll for a cultured man to study and develop his physical advantages. To please women," he made his little insolent bow, "who adore Beauty, and for the sake of ingratiating oneself with men. But above all for one's own sake. For ugliness is despicable," said von Herrnung. His florid face paled, his hard blue eyes dilated, he shivered as he spoke with uncontrollable disgust. "It is—niedrig! There is no other word! No longer to be beautiful and strong—that would be horrible! There are many ugly accidents in our German Flying Service. Thus far I have escaped disfigurement. But when my time comes I shall take care to be killed outright. Better to die than to be made hideous!"
"Did you hear?" said the man in the distant corner to the charming girl who shared it with him. "The fellow's dead in earnest. And he is uncommonly good-looking, though I don't care about the German Service type of man myself. Don't like their clothes, don't like their jewellery, don't like their tone when they're talking to women, and simply loathe it when they're talking to me!"
"It's a case of Doctor Fell," said his pretty friend. "Now I should admire him—if he admired himself a little less, and his valet or somebody with influence over him could persuade him to cut that awful thumb-nail. No, you can't see it now. He's wearing a glove on his left hand. But it can't be under two inches long."
"Queer kind of freak for a Twentieth Centurion," said the man contemptuously. "All very well for the Imperial Court of China, or a Stone Age make-up for a Covent Garden Fancy Ball. But for a London drawin'-room in the year 1914 it is a little off the bull. We must approach Miss Saxham in the matter of cutting it. She appears to be the Ruling Star."
His friend glanced across at the big knot of people gathered near the ferny fireplace.
"They go about together a good deal, and he does stare at her in rather a possessive style. She's so awfully good to look at, isn't she?"
"She is; but she isn't quite so good for you to know!"
"Why?"
"Could we drop the subject? I'll say why later. Let's scoot now! With luck, we could nip in for the end of the second act of 'The Filberts' at Ryley's Theatre, and see Jimmy Griggson do 'The Dance of the Varalette.'"