And he should see her as a man
sees a marvellously beautiful woman!
Satisfied with the conclusion to which she had come, she lay down and
slept for an hour, after which, the enigmatic smile on her lips bringing
into predominance the resemblance to the portrait in the Luxembourg, she
dressed, with more care than she had ever devoted to that process in all
her five-and-twenty years of life.
When she arrived at Charles Street and had shaken hands with the
Duchess, who had had influenza and looked very old, the first person she
saw was Gerald Carron.
"Will you speak to me, Brigit?" he said diffidently, "please do."
He, too, looked ill, and moistened his lips nervously as he spoke. She
shook hands with him without answering, and he hurried on, "Haven't I
been good? I knew where you were, and--I might easily have come----"
"You would not have had a flattering reception," she suggested drily.
"Or written. And I did neither. I was glad you went, though God knows----"
"How do you do, Mrs. Talboys," she cut him short ruthlessly, "when are
we to have another book?"
It was a very large dinner, and Brigit, placed between two men who dined
out for reasons dietetic and economic, and did not talk, was free to
pursue her own thoughts at leisure.
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