Page:The Old Countess (1927).pdf/150

 'Last winter I played in César Franck's 'Psyché.' Do you know it?'

'I've never heard of it even. Is it lovely?'

'It is celestial music,' said Mademoiselle Ludérac, and in the little pause that followed these words, her eyes, with their wide setting, resting upon Jill, made her think not so much of the dawn as of the hour before the dawn; remote, windswept, starry.

Graham, though he talked so briskly with his old lady, had evidently been lending an ear to their conversation, for he now looked round at them to say: 'When does the concert begin?'

'Ah, he is wicked, wicked, this husband of yours!' Madame de Lamouderie addressed Jill. 'He delights in turning all my best sentiments against me.'

'' ' Le diable dans votre bénitier, am I not? ' '' said Graham. 'Come; you must let me hear a little César Franck; that will exorcise me.' He rose and strolled over to the sofa where Jill and Mademoiselle Ludérac sat.

Jill always liked Dick best of all in his tweeds; perhaps because, oddly enough, he looked less like an artist in them than in his evening clothes. His significance was exaggerated rather than effaced by evening dress, and with his rough hair and dark, compelling face, he was arresting and even overwhelming. So, evidently, the old lady had found him; he had gone like wine to her head; and Jill wondered, glancing at Mademoiselle Ludérac as he stood there above them, whether she did not find him overwhelming too. Her