Page:Confidence (London, Macmillan & Co., 1921).djvu/214

 letters, of course, are delightful, but that is even better."

In spite of this sympathetic speech, Bernard cannot be said to have enjoyed his lunch; he was thinking of something else that lay before him and that was not agreeable. He was like a man who has an acrobatic feat to perform—a wide ditch to leap, a high pole to climb—and who has a presentiment of fractures and bruises. Fortunately he was not obliged to talk much, as Mrs. Gordon displayed even more than her usual zeal in rendering her companions the graceful service of lifting the burden of conversation from their shoulders.

"I suppose you were surprised to see us rushing out here so suddenly," she observed in the course of the repast. "We had said nothing about it when you last saw us, and I believe we are supposed to tell you everything, ain't we? I certainly have told you a great many things, and there are some of them I hope you haven't repeated. I have no doubt you have told them all over Paris, but I don't care what you tell in Paris—Paris isn't so easily shocked. Captain Lovelock doesn't repeat what I tell him; I set him up as a model of discretion. I have told him some pretty bad things, and he has liked them so much he has kept them all to himself. I say only my bad things to Captain Lovelock, and my good things to other people; he doesn't know the difference, and he is perfectly content."

"Other people as well often don't know the difference," said Gordon gravely. "You ought always to tell us which are which."

Blanche gave her husband a little impertinent stare.

"When I am not appreciated," she said, with an air of superior dryness, "I am too proud to point it out. I don't know whether you know that I'm 206