Be introduced; it's easily done; you will find
her charming. Then, after a week, you will tell me what she is."
"Perhaps I should not. My friend there has known her a week, and I don't
think he is yet able to give a coherent account of her."
He raised his glass again, and after looking a while, "I am afraid your
friend is a little--what do you call it?--a little 'soft.' Poor fellow!
he's not the first. I have never known this lady that she has not had
some eligible youth hovering about in some such attitude as that,
undergoing the softening process. She looks wonderfully well, from here.
It's extraordinary how those women last!"
"You don't mean, I take it, when you talk about 'those women,' that
Madame Blumenthal is not embalmed, for duration, in a certain infusion of
respectability?"
"Yes and no. The atmosphere that surrounds her is entirely of her own
making. There is no reason in her antecedents that people should drop
their voice when they speak of her. But some women are never at their
ease till they have given some damnable twist or other to their position
before the world. The attitude of upright virtue is unbecoming, like
sitting too straight in a fauteuil. Don't ask me for opinions, however;
content yourself with a few facts and with an anecdote.
Pages:
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55