"Dogs do not like me," said the big German. "You will read perhaps in novels that that is a bad sign, yes?"
"I never read novels," returned Mrs. Charterhouse, with her famous manner, "nor any books, only bits of the papers for the Sporting and Society news. And Reports of Divorce Proceedings, and the Notices in Bankruptcy. One likes to know what one's friends are doing, and where they are to be found. Don't you, Count? Not that there is any great difficulty in ascertaining your whereabouts, just now, I fancy.... Why, what has become of Patrine?"
"Miss Saxham went in there just now to write a letter," said the smiling von Herrnung, pointing to the leather-covered swing-doors communicating with the writing-room. "She comes now, I think! Yes, it is she!" He rose with his air of exaggerated courtesy as the tall figure of Patrine Saxham returned through the swing-doors and re-crossed the room. She carried her head high, and had a letter in her hand. The alteration in the colour of her hair made her whiteness almost startling. There were bluish shadows about her long eyes, and her rounded cheeks had lost a little of their fulness, but her beauty had never been more apparent than now.
"She has dyed, therefore she is dead to me!" groaned Courtley, who was, as usual, in attendance on Lady Beauvayse. He added, plaintively: "It's like—white-washing the Sphinx, or enamelling a first-class battle-cruiser in some fashionable colour. Why did you let her do it, my lady fair?"
Lady Beauvayse retorted:
"Am I Miss Saxham's mother that I should meddle in her love-affairs?"
"If I was acquainted with her mother," said Courtley, below his breath, "and thought the good lady would take my tip seriously, I'd step in and nip this affair in the bud. It's no go, even if Miss Saxham thinks it is. It's a dud. That German flying-chap is booked to marry a cousin; a Baroness Something von Wolfensbragen-Hirschenbuttel. I've seen it in the Berlin Lokal Anzeiger, and that's inspired, a sort of Imperial Court Almanac. And even if it wasn't true, there are reasons—" His kind grey eyes were worried, he tugged at his pointed black beard in a vexed way. "Take me seriously, Miladi, tell her what I've told you, before it's too late!"
"And bring on myself the fate of the interferer.... Couldn't you—since you're so anxious?" Lady Beauvayse began.
"Not possible," said Courtley. "Too crushed with responsibilities. Got to brush up my seamanship, while my junior executive swots away in Docks at Chatham, fillin' in the watch-bill and making out commissioning-cards."
"You've got a ship, do you mean?"