“At the Grande Bretagne.”
“I’ll send you word in the morning. It depends how I feel.”
“I shall be wretchedly disappointed if you don’t come.”
“Will you?” she said with her lazy intonation. “Nous verrons.”
Later, when the guests had gone, Mrs. Delamere began to sound Gerard’s praises. He was a thorough Englishman, intelligent, masculine. Not like the effeminate creatures who had never seen a gun go off in their lives or ridden anything more spirited than a Turbie donkey. He was like a colossus amid these little men, she said, with a vague reminiscence of Shakespeare. It was then that Minna snapped out her bear and monkey comparison. She was thoroughly weary, lay back exhausted and spiritless in a chair, and regarded Gerard’s apologist with an air of tired resignation. The room was hot and stale with the breaths of many people, and the refuse of many perfumes.
“Bear or not,” replied Mrs. Delamere, drawing some crumpled and greasy bank notes from the pocket of her black silk dress, and delicately folding them, “I like to meet an honest, healthy English gentleman again. And I pity the man. I always pity men whose wives go wrong.”
“Pearls before swine,” said Minna, listlessly. “Oh, I am not so hard as that upon the women.”
“You mistake my meaning,” said Minna. “He is the hog.”
Mrs. Delamere looked up surprised. “I thought you disliked her so. And you certainly have been encouraging him.”
Minna drew her body together in a kind of shudder, and threw out her hand in a gesture of repulsion. “He gives me the creeps!” she said.