Page:The Reverberator (2nd edition, American issue, London and New York, Macmillan & Co., 1888).djvu/155

Rh with her the second impression was most comforting. It was just this second impression of the marquise that was not. There were perhaps others behind it but the girl had not yet arrived at them. Mr. Waterlow might not have been very fond of Mr. Flack, but he was none the less perfectly civil to him, and took much trouble to show him all the work that he had in hand, dragging out canvases, changing lights, taking him off to see things at the other end of the great room. While the two gentlemen were at a distance Mme. de Cliché expressed to Francie the confidence that she would allow her to see her home: on which Francie replied that she was not going home, she was going somewhere else with Mr. Flack. And she explained, as if it simplified the matter, that this gentleman was an editor.

Her interlocutress echoed the term and Francie developed her explanation. He was not the only editor, but one of the many editors, of a great American paper. He was going to publish an article about her picture. Gaston knew him perfectly; it was Mr. Flack who had been the cause of Gaston's being presented to her. Mme. de Cliché looked across at him as if the inadequacy of the cause projected an unfavourable light upon the effect; she inquired whether Francie thought Gaston would like her to drive about Paris alone with an editor. "I'm sure I don't know. I never asked him!" said Francie. "He ought to want