Page:Bat Wing 1921.djvu/83

Rh she followed with looks of almost motherly affection. This was all the more strange as Madame de Stämer whose age, I supposed, lay somewhere on the sunny side of forty, was of a type which expects, and wins, admiration, long after the average woman has ceased to be attractive.

One endowed with such a temperament is as a rule unreasonably jealous of youth and good looks in another. I could not determine if Madame’s attitude were to be ascribed to complacent self-satisfaction or to a nobler motive. It sufficed for me that she took an unfeigned joy in the youthful sweetness of her companion.

“Val, dear,” she said, presently, addressing the girl, “you should make those sleeves shorter, my dear.”

She had a rapid way of speaking, and possessed a slightly husky but fascinatingly vibrant voice.

“Your arms are very pretty. You should not hide them.”

Val Beverley blushed, and laughed to conceal her embarrassment.

“Oh, my dear,” exclaimed Madame, “why be ashamed of arms? All women have arms, but some do well to hide them.”

“Quite right, Marie,” agreed the Colonel, his thin voice affording an odd contrast to the deeper tones of his cousin. “But it is the scraggy ones who seem to delight in displaying their angles.”

“The English, yes,” Madame admitted, “but the French, no. They are too clever, Juan.”

“Frenchwomen think too much about their looks,” said Val Beverley, quietly. “Oh, you know they do, Madame. They would rather die than be without admiration.”