“Well, I suppose if you failed to put in an appearance, a crisis in Europe would not result, would it?” she observed with a touch of grim irony. “At the Rue de Lille or the Rue de Varenne,” she added, meaning the German and Austrian Embassies, “they take things far more easily than you do. That’s the worst of you English—you are always so very enthusiastic and so painfully businesslike.”
“I am compelled to do my duty,” I answered briefly.
“Most certainly,” answered the Baroness. “But you might surely be sociable as well! This is not like you, M’sieur Ingram.”
“I must apologise, Baronne,” I said. “But, believe me, it is impossible for me to go to Barbison to-day. I have urgent correspondence here to attend to, and afterwards I must run up to Paris.”
When she saw that I was firm, she reluctantly left me, saying as she disappeared through the door:
“I really don’t know what is coming to you. You are not at all the light and soul of the summer picnics, as you once used to be.”
“I’m growing old,” I shouted with a laugh.
She halted, turned back, and, putting her head inside the room again, retorted in a low, distinct voice:
“Or have fallen in love—which is it?”
I treated her suggestion with ridicule, and in the end she retired, laughing merrily, for at heart she was a pleasant woman, with whom I was always on excellent terms of friendship.