The picture in
the Luxembourg gallery, a typically French, subtle, secretive face,
gives the expression of her face and the strange gleam in the long eyes.
But it, the face in the picture, is overcivilised, whereas Brigit looked
untamed and resentful.
She wore, for the weather had changed with the unpleasant capriciousness
of an elderly coquette, a warm, close-fitting black coat and skirt and a
small black toque. Round her neck clung to its own tail, as if in a
despairing attempt to find out what had happened to its own anatomy, a
little sable boa. She had a dressing-case and an umbrella, both of them
characteristically uncumbersome and light, and several newspapers and a
book.
Her journey was not to be a long one. She was going to change trains in
London and go half an hour into Surrey to spend a few days with a
friend. Lady Kingsmead, when told of the speedy jilting of the desirable
Pontefract, and the subsequent acceptance of young Joyselle, had been
disagreeable.
"It is ridiculous, and everyone will say you are cradle-snatching," she
had said. "When you are forty he will be thirty-seven--almost a boy
still."
"Dearest mamma," returned the girl with a very unfilial lift of her
upper lip, "forty is--_youth_!"
"And for you to marry a nobody; the son of nobody knows whom!"
"But everybody knows who his father is--which is rather distinguished
nowadays!"
Then Lady Kingsmead, as was natural, quite lost her temper and stormed.
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