Part 15 (1/2)

There was a rare perfection about her lithe, graceful person, an ease and subtlety of line, an allure which was satisfying--from her trim little feet gloved in suede, to the slender nape of her neck, from which sprang, back of the loveliest of little ears, the exquisite sheen of her blonde hair.

There were mornings when she wore a faultless tailor-made of plain dark blue and carried a scarlet parasol, with its jewelled handle held in a firm little hand secreted in spotless white kid.

I noticed, too, in pa.s.sing that her eyes were deep violet and exceedingly alert, her features cla.s.sic in their fineness. Once I saw her smile, not at me, but at her fox terrier. It was then that I caught a glimpse of her young white teeth--pearly white in contrast to the freshness of her pink and olive skin, so clear that it seemed to be translucent, and she blushed easily, having lived but a score of springs all told.

In the afternoon, when she drove in her brougham lined with dove-gray, the scarlet parasol was subst.i.tuted by one of filmy, creamy lace, shading a gown of pale mauve or champagne colour.

I had heard that she was pa.s.sionately extravagant, that she seldom, if ever, won at the races--owned a little hotel with a carved facade in the Avenue du Bois, a villa at Dinard, and three fluffy little dogs, who jingled their gold bells when they followed her.

She dined at Paillard's, sometimes at the Cafe de la Paix, rarely at Maxim's; skated at the Palais de Glace on the most respectable afternoons--drank plain water--rolled her own cigarettes--and possessed a small jewel box full of emeralds, which she seldom wore.

_Voila!_ A spoiled child for you!

There were mornings, too, when, after her tub, as early as nine, she galloped away on her cob to the _Bois_ for her coffee and hot _brioche_ at the Pre Catelan, a romantic little farm with a cafe and a stableful of mild-eyed cows that provide fresh milk to the weary at daylight, who are trying hard to turn over a new leaf before the next midnight. Often she came there accompanied by her groom and the three little dogs with the jingling bells, who enjoyed the warm milk and the run back of the fleet hoofs of her saddle-horse.

On this very morning--upon which opens the second act of my drama, I found her sitting at the next table to mine, chiding one of the jingling little dogs for his disobedience.

”_Eh ben! tu sais!_” she exclaimed suddenly, with a savage gleam in her eyes.

I turned and gazed at her in astonishment. It was the first time I had heard her voice. It was her accent that made me stare.

”_Eh ben! tu sais!_” she repeated, in the patois of the Normand peasant, lifting her riding crop in warning to the ball of fluff who had refused to get on his chair and was now wriggling in apology.

”Who is that lady?” I asked the old waiter Emile, who was serving me.

”Madame is an Austrian,” he confided to me, bending his fat back as he poured my coffee.

”Austrian, eh! Are you certain, Emile?”

”_Parbleu_, monsieur” replied Emile, ”one is never certain of any one in Paris. I only tell monsieur what I have heard. Ah! it is very easy to be mistaken in Paris, monsieur. Take, for instance, the lady in deep mourning, with the two little girls, over there at the table under the lilac bush.”

”She is young to be a widow,” I interposed, glancing discreetly in the direction he nodded.

Emile smiled faintly. ”She is not a widow, monsieur,” he returned, ”neither is she as Spanish as she looks; she is Polish and dances at the Folies Parisiennes under the name of _La Belle Gueritta_ from Seville.”

”But her children look French,” I ventured.

”They are the two little girls of her concierge, monsieur.” Emile's smile widened until it spread in merry wrinkles to the corners of his twinkling eyes.

”In all that lace and velvet?” I exclaimed.

”Precisely, monsieur.”

”And why the deep mourning, Emile?”

”It is a pose, monsieur. One must invent novelties, eh? when one is as good-looking as that. Besides, madame's reputation has not been of the best for some time. Monsieur possibly remembers the little affair last year in the Rue des Mathurins? Very well, it was she who extracted the hundred thousand francs from the Marquis de Villiers. Madame now gives largely to charity and goes to ma.s.s.”

”Blackmail, Emile?”

”Of the worst kind, and so monsieur sees how easily one can be mistaken, is it not so? _Sacristi!_ one never knows.”