Page:Bat Wing 1921.djvu/84

76 Madame shrugged her shoulders.

“So would I, my dear,” she confessed, “although I cannot walk. Without admiration there is”—she snapped her fingers—“nothing. And who would notice a linnet when a bird of paradise was about, however sweet her voice? Tell me that, my dear?”

Paul Harley aroused himself and laughed heartily.

“Yet,” he said, “I think with Miss Beverley, that this love of elegance does not always make for happiness. Surely it is the cause of half the domestic tragedies in France?”

“Ah, the French love elegance,” cried Madame, shrugging, “they cannot help it. To secure what is elegant a Frenchwoman will sometimes forget her husband, yes, but never forget herself.”

“Really, Marie,” protested the Colonel, “you say most strange things!”

“Is that so, Juan?” she replied, casting one of her queer glances in his direction; “but how would you like to be surrounded by a lot of drabs, eh? That man, Mr. Knox,” she extended one white hand in the direction of Colonel Menendez, the fingers half closed, in a gesture which curiously reminded me of Sarah Bernhardt, “that man would notice if a parlourmaid came into the room with a shoe unbuttoned. Poof! if we love elegance it is because without it the men would never love us.”

Colonel Menendez bent across the table and kissed the white fingers in his courtier-like fashion.

“My sweet cousin,” he said, “I should love you in rags.”

Madame smiled and flushed like a girl, but withdrawing her hand she shrugged.

“They would have to be pretty rags!” she added.

During this little scene I detected Val Beverley