Page:The Old Countess (1927).pdf/142

 late! Two days, empty; desolate; but for the charity of this adorable creature.'

'But it's when it rains that I come to you,' said Graham.

'And it never rains in Buissac!' cried the old lady. 'Never! never! I see that I shall come to curse the sunlight!'

'It's raining now,' said Graham. 'And have you forgotten your great floods?'

'You make me forget everything! You turn my head!' Madame de Lamouderie retorted. 'Sit here; sit beside me,' she went on. 'No; I jest. I do not expect you. I have too little to offer you; I know it well. In my old happy days I could have entertained you differently. Princes, diplomats, poets, all that Europe had to give, would have bowed in my salon over your little hand, ma chère petite; and all the most beautiful women of the court of the third Napoleon would have been mad with love of this wicked husband of yours.—Yes, he is wicked!' She threatened him with her fan. 'Does one not see it in his eyes?'

'I'm thankful we didn't know you then!' laughed Jill. 'I don't want beautiful women to be in love with him!'

'Ah; you need have feared nothing from them; nothing,' Madame de Lamouderie declared while her eye travelled ravenously over Jill's dress. 'Their despair would have been a further tribute laid at your feet.—This is the first time I have seen you with your head uncovered.—Oh, the thick russet hair cut short! It