Page:Confidence (London, Macmillan & Co., 1921).djvu/241

 been thinking about it all day; and I am so fond of a visit like this in the evening, without being invited. Then I thought perhaps you had a salon—doesn't every one in Paris have a salon? I tried to have a salon in New York, only Gordon said it wouldn't do. He said it wasn't in our manners. Is this a salon to-night, Mrs. Vivian? Oh, do say it is; I should like so much to see Captain Lovelock in a salon! By good fortune he happened to have been dining with us; so I told him he must bring me here. I told you I would explain, Captain Lovelock," she added, "and I hope you think I have made it clear."

The Captain had turned very red during this wandering discourse. He sat pulling his beard and shifting the position which, with his stalwart person, he had taken up on a little gilded chair—a piece of furniture which every now and then gave a delicate creak.

"I always understand you well enough till you begin to explain," he rejoined, with a candid, even if embarrassed, laugh. "Then, by Jove, I am quite in the woods. You see such a lot more in things than most people. Doesn't she, Miss Vivian?"

"Blanche has a fine imagination," said Angela, smiling frankly at the charming visitor.

When Blanche was fairly adrift upon the current of her articulate reflexions, it was the habit of her companions—indeed, it was a sort of tacit agreement among them—simply to make a circle and admire. They sat about and looked at her—yawning, perhaps, a little at times, but on the whole very well entertained, and often exchanging a smiling commentary with each other. She looked at them, smiled at them each in succession. Every one had his turn, and this always helped to give Blanche an audience. Incoherent and aimless as much of her talk was, she never looked prettier than in the attitude of improvisation—or rather, I should say, than in the 233