“Yes, but with an air——”
“Certainly—an air!” He nodded.
“Well, she is a countrywoman of yours and has a history. Her father, a journalist, artist, no matter what, came to live in Paris years ago. He went down, down, always down; six months ago he died. There was enough to bury him, no more. She says, I don’t know”—the Princess indicated doubt with a movement of her fan—“that she wrote to friends in England. Perhaps she did not write; how do I know? She was at the last sou, the street before her, a hag of a concierge behind, and withal—as you see her.”
“Not wearing that dress, I presume?” he said with a faint smile.
“No. She had passed everything to the Mont de Piété; she had what she stood up in—yet herself! Then a Polish family on the floor below, to whom my daughter carried alms, told Cécile of her. They pitied her, spoke well of her, she had done—no matter what for them—perhaps nothing. Probably nothing. But Cécile ascended, saw her, became enamoured, enragée! You know Cécile—for her all that wears feathers is of the angels! Nothing would do but she must bring her here and set her to teach English to the daughters during her own absence.”
“The Princess is away?”
“For four weeks. But in three days she returns, and you see where I am. How do I know who this is? She may be this, or that. If she were French, if she were Polish, I should know! But she is English and of a calm, a reticence—ah!”
“And of a pride too,” he replied thoughtfully, “if I mistake not. Yet it is a good face, Princess.”
She fluttered her fan. “It is a handsome one. For a man that is the same.”
“With all this you permit her to appear?”