Part 39 (2/2)
You now shall answer a question. Who is Miss Clonarty?”
Julien gazed at her in astonishment.
”Miss Clonarty?” he repeated.
Madame Christophor nodded.
”The name seems to surprise you. A young English woman called on me to-day in answer to my advertis.e.m.e.nt for a secretary who could write and speak English. She said that her name was Miss Anne Clonarty and she referred me to you.”
”If she is the lady whom I suppose she is,” Julien replied, ”you will be perfectly safe in engaging her.”
Madame Christophor looked at him from underneath the lids of her eyes.
”Do you think that I do not know?” she asked, with a shade of contempt in her tone,--”that I do not sometimes read the papers? Do you think that I have not seen that Lady Anne Clonarty, the girl whom you were engaged to marry, disappeared from her home the other day, on the eve of her marriage to another man? It is this girl who comes to me for my situation, is it not so?”
Julien was silent.
”I knew nothing of her coming. I did not even know that you wanted a secretary.”
”I wonder why she came to Paris,” Madame Christophor remarked. ”Is she in love with you?”
”There was never any question of anything of the sort,” Julien declared fervently.
”You have seen her since she arrived in Paris?”
”Entirely by accident. I saw her alight from the train. I was at the Gare du Nord to meet Kendricks.”
Madame Christophor leaned back in her seat.
”Is it your wish that I engage her?”
”Certainly,” Julien replied. ”I am sure that you will find her competent. At the same time, I don't know how long she will keep this thing up.”
”As a rule I do not care for handsome women around me,” Madame Christophor said composedly. ”Lady Anne is much too good-looking to please me. She has all the freshness and vitality,” she added, dropping her voice a little, ”which seem to have left me forever.”
”You have experience,” Julien reminded her. ”Experience in itself is wonderful, even though one has to pay for it.”
They were in the streets of Paris now. Madame Christophor shrugged her shoulders and sat up.
”It is one of the misfortunes of my s.e.x,” she said, a little bitterly, ”that without experience we lack charm--in the eyes of you men, that is to say. It is your own folly.... Are you coming home with me, my friend, or shall I set you down somewhere?”
”As near the Gare du Nord as possible, if you please,” Julien begged.
”I have wearied you enough for one afternoon.”
Madame Christophor looked at him thoughtfully. There was a slight frown upon her forehead.
”Somewhere near the Gare du Nord!” she repeated.
<script>