I was thinking sadly about my dear Mother, and wondering where she was, when I ran against a Frenchman, a real Frenchman, and he asked me where was the mistress of the house, and that showed me that other people thought about her too; I didn’t answer for a moment, and he went on in a kind of dreamy voice—
“I was brought here to see an English interior——”
“Well,” I said. “It’s inside four walls, isn’t it?”
“Mon Dieu, mademoiselle,” said he, “I had made to myself another idea of le home Anglais—the fireside—the maîtresse de la maison with her keys depending from her girdle—the children—the sacred children, standing round her—bébé crowing——”
“There isn’t any baby!” I said, “and a good thing too! But this is a party, don’t you see, and we are all playing the fool, and we shall be sensible to-morrow, and if you will excuse me, I am one of the sacred children, and I am just looking for my mother’s knee to go and stand against.”
He made way for me with a “Permettez, mademoiselle!” and I went, thinking I would go and ask Ben at the door if he knew where she was. Ben didn’t know, but he said that a woman who was standing near the door, letting the cool night-wind blow in under her mask and telling people how she enjoyed it, was Lady Scilly. She was standing almost in the street, with a man, who was George. There are tall bushes near our door, rather pretty at night, though they belong to the next-door gardens. Ben didn’t know till I told him; he is the stupid child that doesn’t know its own father. He told me what they had been saying. She had begun by asking him if he approved of women wearing ospreys? There’s a silly thing to ask, for what could he say but that he didn’t, being a poet? Then she made a face, prettyish, out of habit, forgetting that it couldn’t be seen under her mask, and whined,
“Oh, I’m so sorry, it is the least wicked thing I do!”
“For beautiful women—I assume you are a beautiful woman, for purposes of dialogue,” George said; “there is no law of humanity. Go on. Pluck your red pleasure from the teeth of pain.” ...
“Yes, I am very wicked,” she said. “My impulses are cruel. Sometimes, do you know, I am almost afraid of myself.”
“As I am—as we all are,” said George.