"Delighted, I'm sure," answered the latter, glancing at me; and by the look he gave me I felt convinced that my suspicions, aroused in London about a year before, were not quite groundless. His glance was a convincing proof that he admired me.
The fault of us women is that we so often over-esteem the value of our good looks. To my mind the possession of handsome toilettes is quite as essential to a woman's well-being and man's contentment as are personal attractions. A woman, however beautiful she may be, loses half her charm to men's eyes if she dresses dowdily, or without taste. Nobody ever saw a really beautiful Parisienne. For the most part, the ladies of the French capital are thin-nosed, thin-lipped, scraggy-necked, yellow-faced and absolutely ugly; yet are they not, merely by reason of their chic in dress, the most attractive women in the world? I know that many will dissent from this estimate; but as my mirror tells me that I have a face more than commonly handsome, and as dozens of men have further endorsed the mute evidence of my toilet-glass, I can only confess that all my triumphs and all my harmless flirtations have had their beginnings in the attraction exercised by the dainty creations of my couturière. We hear much complaining among women to the effect that there are not a sufficient number of nice men to go round; but after all, the woman who knows how to dress need have no lack of offers of marriage. American women on the Continent can always be distinguished from the English, and it is certain that to their quiet chic in frills and furbelows their success in the marriage market is due.
Yes, there was no doubt that Reggie Thorne admired me. I had suspected it on the night when we had waltzed together at the Pendyman's, and afterwards gossiped together over ices; but with a woman flirtations of the ball-room are soon forgotten, and, truth to tell, I had forgotten him until our sudden and unexpected meeting.
"What awfully good luck we've met Gerald and Reggie," Ulrica said, when, half-an-hour later, we were seated together in the privacy of our sitting-room. "Gerald, poor boy, was always a bit gone on me in London; and as for Reggie—well, he'll make an excellent cavalier for you. Even if Mother Grundy is dead and buried, it isn't very respectable to be constantly trotting over to Monte Carlo without male escort."
"You mean that they'll be a couple of useful males?"
"Certainly. Their coming is quite providential. Some of Gerald's luck at the tables may be reflected upon us. I should dearly like to make my expenses at roulette."
"So should I."
"There's no reason why we shouldn't," she went on. "I know quite a lot of people who've won enough to pay for the whole winter on the Riviera."
"Reggie has money, hasn't he?"
"Of course. The old man was on the Stock Exchange and died very comfortably off. All of it went to Reggie, except an annuity settled on his mother. Of course, he's spent a good deal since. A man doesn't live in the Albany as he does, drive tandem, and all that sort of thing, on nothing a year."