Page:The Old Countess (1927).pdf/85

 possible. And pouring out their tea, she began, with her released and happy volubility, to tell them again about herself; about her salon in Paris; her sons, who had been  ' garçons charmants, '  but  ' très, très dissipés ' ; her one remaining child, a princess; a Russian princess, who had had to flee before the Bolsheviks to a refuge offered by a relative in South America. 'I shall never see her again, never,' she declared. 'And when we meet it is not always happy. She is like her father; she has a violent temper and is d'un égoïsme effrayant.—I am alone in the world; quite alone. And no one cares whether I live or die.'