Page:Elizabeth's Pretenders.djvu/239

226 ''Mdme. M. (looking bilious at the bare thought''). "American stomachs must be different. That is all."

Doucet. "Why should I go to a country where they do not read French—where they do not understand what I say? I was asked to go to London, to recite some ballads at concerts there. But I said, 'It would be desecrating my talent to speak my verses to people who do not understand.

The Professor. "It requires a special talent to do so. I have it not. You were wise, Monsieur Doucet, not to risk it."

''Mdme. de B.'' "To be understood is to be vulgar. Any one can be understood. Is it not so, doctor?"

Morin (moving his head from side to side). "Ah! I say not quite that. Still there is a charm in the vague—in the difficult of comprehension—as I have remarked in my lecture on Dante."

Eliza. "You have lectured on Dante?"

Morin. "Yes—from a medical point of view—quite a new one."

Baring (to Elizabeth, taking advantage of the babel of tongues, now grown louder). "Do you hear these French men? Not one of them who does not contrive to shift the conversation back to himself. Their egoism is amazing!"

Eliza. (to Baring). " I don't mind it, as I did at first. It is so naïf. Perhaps we are just as self-absorbed, though we haven't the courage to show it."

Baring. "You are not wanting in courage." (He is about to add something, but Elton, who has been firing right and left, stops him, short with a shot.)

Elton. "Mr. Baring, why not exhibit in London?