The girls on the sofa listen with awe-struck curiosity, and the Frenchman continues his harangue.
"And after a few years, when these new institutions shall have taken root in the hearts of Englishmen, the heroic army returns to sunny France, saying, 'Now we understand one another, and now there will be eternal peace between us.' The regeneration of merry England, by means of Norman blood, will outlive many centuries. But if you relapse again into your puritanical spleen, then we shall come again. And the daughters of Albion stand on the chalky cliffs wailing, and stretch their white arms after their liberators. How do you like the sketch? Is it not chivalrous? Is it not full of the most touching disinterestedness? How do you like it, Sir John? Do not be frightened, it is merely _une idée_."
But Sir John is far too angry to reply, and M. Gueronnay turns again to the Doctor.
"_Parole d'honneur_," says he, "it is a perfect disgrace, the education of the women in England! _N'est ce pas_, even your German philosophers must admit, that the Grand Opera is the cynosure, the academy, the flower of high life--of elegance, _enfin_, of civilisation. _Eh bien!_ go to the opera, take a good glass, and you will despair. Beautiful women, you will find in plenty in the boxes, in the stalls, and in the gallery. But please to take your glass, and you will see they are allmere raw material. A splendid breed, certainly--a little heavy in the bones--large feet, but that makes no difference--but a complexion--hair--flesh--tell me, am I impartial, or am I not? _Mais, mon cher_, they are all rough diamonds. It makes one's heart bleed, to think how this race of women might be brought out, and what a treasure these brutal Englishmen are neglecting! I will say nothing whatever of the toilet. Take a Paris _grisette_, give her three-quarters of a yard of tulle and two yards and a half of ribbon, and she conquers the world; but an English woman--say Lady A.--with her California of shawls and diamonds on her person, has the appearance of a clothes' stand. But, as I said before, I will not go the length of asking for a genius for toilet. I will suppose that the light-haired marchioness, with those superb curls, has the good sense to get her fashions from Paris, and that, as a constitutional lady, she is governed by the advice of her responsible French maid. She does not insist on having a scarlet shawl and a light green dress with orange flounces, and a cavalry hat with ostrich feathers. No; she is _bonne enfante_--she listens to reason."