" He had begged the young man
would present his excuses and had trusted him to understand that it
couldn't really strike one as quite the straight thing. He hadn't
reported to Mrs. Newsome that he had promised to "save" Madame de
Vionnet; but, so far as he was concerned with that reminiscence, he
hadn't at any rate promised to haunt her house. What Chad had
understood could only, in truth, be inferred from Chad's behaviour,
which had been in this connexion as easy as in every other. He was
easy, always, when he understood; he was easier still, if possible,
when he didn't; he had replied that he would make it all right; and
he had proceeded to do this by substituting the present occasion--
as he was ready to substitute others--for any, for every occasion
as to which his old friend should have a funny scruple.
"Oh but I'm not a little foreign girl; I'm just as English as I can be,"
Jeanne de Vionnet had said to him as soon as, in the petit salon,
he sank, shyly enough on his own side, into the place near her
vacated by Madame Gloriani at his approach. Madame Gloriani,
who was in black velvet, with white lace and powdered hair, and
whose somewhat massive majesty melted, at any contact, into the
graciousness of some incomprehensible tongue, moved away to make
room for the vague gentleman, after benevolent greetings to him
which embodied, as he believed, in baffling accents, some
recognition of his face from a couple of Sundays before.
Pages:
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323