Page:Anthony Hope - The Kings Mirror.djvu/192

 "Why do you listen to what Varvilliers says about me instead of finding out about me yourself?" she asked.

"How do you know he talked of you, mademoiselle?"

She shrugged her shoulders and returned to her salad. William Adolphus asked her a question; she nodded without looking up from the salad. I began to eat my salad.

"It's a good salad," I observed, after a few mouthfuls.

"Very," said Coralie; she turned her great eyes on me. "And, mon Dieu, what a rare thing!" she added with a sigh.

Probably she would expect a touch of gallantry.

"The perfection of everything is rare," said I, looking pointedly in her face. She put up her hand, lightly fingered the curls on her forehead, smiled at me, and turned again to her salad. I laughed. She looked up again quickly.

"You laugh at me?" she asked, not resentfully, but with an air of frank inquiry.

"No, at the human race, mademoiselle. It is we, not you, who excite laughter."

She regarded me with_ apparent curiosity, and gradually began to smile. "Why?" she asked, just showing her level white teeth.

"You haven't learned yet?"

William Adolphus began to speak to her. You would have sworn she had a deaf ear that side. She had finished her salad and sat turned toward me. If a very white shoulder could at all console my brother-in-law, he had an admirable view of one. Apparently he was not content; he pushed his chair back with a noise and called to me: