“Flatterer!” she laughed. “If I were forty years younger I might accept that as a compliment. But at my age—well, it is really cruel of you.”
“Intelligence is more interesting to a diplomat than a pretty face,” I responded quickly. “And there is certainly no more intelligent woman in all Paris than the Baronne de Chalencon.”
She bowed stiffly, and her wrinkled face, which bore visible traces of poudre orchidée and touches of the hare’s-foot, puckered up into a simpering smile.
“Well, and what else?” she asked. “These speeches you have apparently prepared for some pretty woman you expected to meet here to-night, but, since she has not kept the appointment, you are practising them upon me.”
“No,” I said, “I really protest against that, Baronne. A woman is never too old for a man to pay her compliments.”
We had strolled into a cool ante-room, and were sitting together upon one of the many seats placed beneath clumps of palms and flowers, the only light being from a hundred tiny electric lamps hung overhead in the trees. The perfect arrangement of those ante-rooms of the Salle des Fêtes on the nights of the official receptions is always noteworthy, and after the heat, music, and babel of tongues in the grand salon it was cool, quiet, and refreshing there.
By holding her regular salon, where everybody who was anybody made it a point to be seen, the Baronne had acquired in Paris a unique position. Her fine house in the Avenue des Champs Elysées was the centre of a smart and fashionable set, and she herself made a point of being versed in all the latest gossip and scandal of the French capital. She scandalised nobody, nor did she seek to throw mud at her enemies. She merely repeated what was whispered to her; hence a chat with her was always interesting to one who, like myself, was paid to keep his ears open and report from time to time the direction of the political wind.
Tournier, the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, and his wife were her most intimate friends; hence she was frequently aware of facts which were of considerable importance to us. Indeed, once or twice her friendliness for myself had caused her to drop hints which had been of the greatest use to Lord Barmouth in the conduct of his difficult diplomacy at that time when the boulevard journals were screaming against England and the filthy prints were caricaturing Her Majesty, with intent to insult. Even the Figaro—the moderate organ of the French Foreign Office—had lost its self-control in the storm of abuse following the Fashoda incident, and had libelled and maligned “les English.” I therefore seized the opportunity for a chat with the wizen-faced old lady, who seemed in a particularly good-humour, and deftly turned the conversation into the political channel.
“Now, tell me, Baronne,” I said, after we had been chatting some little time, and I had learnt more than one important fact regarding the intentions of Tournier, “what is your opinion regarding the occupation of Ceuta?”
She glanced at me quickly, as though surprised that I should be aware of what she had believed to be an entire secret.