Page:Anthony Hope - The Kings Mirror.djvu/387

 "Your husband, yes. Shall I tell you something? You remember what I've been saying to you?"

"Very well; you've repeated it often. Are you going to repeat it now out loud?"

"Where's the use? Everybody here knows. I'll tell you another thing." He leaned forward, still holding her wrist tightly. "Look at Struboff," he said. "Look well at him."

"I am giving myself the pleasure of looking at M. Struboff," said Coralie.

"Very well. When you die—because you'll grow old, and you'll grow ugly, and at last, after you have become very ugly, you'll die."

Coralie looked rather vexed, a little perturbed and protesting. Wetter had touched the one point on which she had troubled herself to criticise the order of the universe.

"When, I say, you die," pursued Wetter, "when, after growing extremely ugly, you die, you will be sent to hell because you have not appreciated the virtues or repaid the devotion of my good friend M. Struboff. And, sire" (he turned to me), "when one considers that, it appears unreasonable to imagine that eternity will be in any degree less peculiar than this present life of ours."

"That's all very well," said Coralie, "but after having grown ugly I don't think I should mind anything else."

I clapped my hands.

"I think," said I, "if M. Struboff will pardon the supposition, that madame will be allowed to escape perdition. For, see, she will stand up and she will say quite calmly, with that adorable smile of hers"