“No.”
“Too clever?”
“She could never succeed in making her mind a blank, I fancy. She thinks all the time—nothing particularly worth thinking, I daresay. Still, she is so pretty, I should like to try. She is not a London woman?”
“How do you know that?”
“Oh, she is beautifully dressed. It isn’t that,” he said smiling. “The dress may be Paris, but the soul is Newcastle.”
Egidia started. “You are really a wonderful man, Dr. André, or else you have the luck of coincidences!”
He smiled, with the fatuity of the occultist.
“You are right, she does come from Newcastle, but let me tell you that when I introduce you, you will find her quite au fait of all the latest London fads. She makes it her business to be. These illustrated papers do a great deal to prepare the provincial mind for the more startling developments of our civilization. Mrs. Elles has looked on the Medusa head of certain aspects of society through the medium of ‘Black and White,’ and the ‘Ladies’ Field.’”
“How you hate her!” said Dr. André.
Egidia wore mental sackcloth and ashes for the rest of the evening, conscious that she had for once allowed herself to be drawn to the very verge of the fathomless gulf of feminine spite.