Page:The Old Countess (1927).pdf/97

 it's given; what it's taken away.—And the ivory, black, grey of your colouring; what is the russet and pink of youth to compare to it? One looks at a young face as one does at a peach. It means nothing.'

'Ah;—it means something you wish to take into your hands; to bite into,' said the old lady, and her glance, half mocking, half provocative, drifted down and rested on him. 'Do not tell me that you are so disinterested in peaches. You are not an old man with all that life has taken from him showing in his face.'

'Oh, peaches are all right, in their way'—again she slightly disconcerted him. 'They are fit for biting into,' he said; 'but that's not an æsthetic occupation.'

Madame de Lamouderie, at this, gave a high, quavering laugh. 'Ah—we are not æsthetic, then, we women! To be bitten into! That is all we ask.'

Graham maintained, with calm, the decorum that his companion seemed determined to assail. 'Of course it is; quite rightly; while you are young. That is why you are so uninteresting when you are young except—if you will pardon me—from the point of view of appetite.'

He was calm; he was decorous; but he saw that he made the old lady very happy. She stood looking down at him, leaning on her stick; and no conversation could have pleased her better.

'You have bitten into many peaches?' she now inquired. 'You also will tell me of your histories?'

'I am a faithful husband, Madame,' said Graham,