that will absorb and delight you.' Graham looked towards the young woman.
'Ah, Marthe is my good angel, but she is not a magician,' said the old lady, who, evidently, was bent on making him feel her mood a bitter one. There is no book written that could absorb or delight me. A passing diversion; that is alone possible.—What have you, Marthe?'
Mademoiselle Ludérac was standing before a row of books set side by side on the table in the alcove. 'Shall we go on with "La Colline Inspirée"?' she inquired.
'Ah, non; I am weary of that Barrès! He is too intellectual.—Distinguished, but lifeless. I like people, not localities; it is always localities, or theories, he gives us.'
Graham saw that Mademoiselle Ludérac slightly smiled. The old lady's humour did not flourish in an unappreciative atmosphere.
'The new François Mauriac?'
'Ah, non, par exemple!' Madame de Lamouderie rejected the suggestion with even more emphasis. 'He is indeed of a dreariness, that young man!—He is like hot dust in the mouth. One imagines that one has found a tale of passion, of flesh and blood, and lo, before one knows where one is, all is tombs and dust and penitence! I do not relish these young Catholics.—I am indeed a diable dans leur bénitier!' the old lady laughed grimly; adding, 'Have you a volume of Maupassant?'
'Not much penitence, perhaps, but no lack of dust in
