In agitation Madame Wetme helped herself to a small glassful of _Cointreau_, (her favourite liqueur) when, feeling calmer for the consommation, she was moved to take a peep out of Antoine.
Between the oleanders upon the curb, that rose up darkly against a flame-pink sky, two young men dressed “as Poets” were arguing and gesticulating freely over a bottle of beer. Near them, a sailor with a blue drooping collar and dusty boots (had he walked, poor wretch, to see his mother?) was gazing stupidly at the large evening gnats that revolved like things bewitched about the café lamps. While below the window a lean soul in glasses, evidently an impresario, was loudly exclaiming: “London has robbed me of my throat, sir!! It has deprived me of my voice.”
Through a slow, sun-flower of a door (that kept on revolving long after it had been pushed) a few military men bent on a game of billiards, or an early _fille de joie_ (only the discreetest _des filles “serieuses”_ were supposed to be admitted)--came and went.
“To-night they’re fit for church,” Madame Wetme complacently smiled as the door swung round again: “Navy-blue and silver-fox looks the goods,” she reflected, “upon any occasion! It suggests something sly--like a Nurse’s uniform.”
“A lady in the drawing-room, Madame, desires to speak to you,” a chasseur tunefully announced, and fingering nervously her aigrette Madame Wetme followed.
The Duchess of Varna was inspecting a portrait with her back to the door as her hostess entered.
“I see you’re looking at my Murillo!” Madame Wetme began.
“Oh.... Is it o-ri-gi-nal?” the duchess drawled.
“To judge by the Bankruptcy-sales of late (and it’s curious how many there’ve been ...) it would seem from the indifferent figure he makes, that he is no longer accounted chic,” Madame Wetme observed as she drew towards the duchess a chair.
“I consider the chic to be such a very false religion!...” the duchess said, accepting the seat which was offered her.
“Well, I come of an old Huguenot family myself!”
“Ah my early home.... Now, I hear, it’s nothing but a weed-crowned ruin.”
The duchess considered the ivory cat handle of her parasol: “You wrote to me?” she asked.
“Every woman has her dream, duchess! And mine’s to be presented.”