in such numbers,' said Graham, and he continued to laugh softly to himself.
The old lady, even in her most dramatic moods, rarely lost her warning sense of the ridiculous, and she cast upon him now a quick, measuring glance. 'Ah, Monsieur, it does not follow, you know, that there is always safety in numbers,' she rejoined, and with such a change of tone, with so much of edge and malice in her gaiety that Graham for a moment was disconcerted. 'Not unless they have the husband's sanction,' he found, and the old lady, her eyes and lips consenting to any sous-entendu he might choose to attribute to the word, replied with a 'Précisement.'
'And now, you know,' said Graham, still laughing, 'I must ask you to tell me no more engrossing stories for a little while; I can't do you justice and listen to you at the same time.—You will reward me for my industry and self-denial,' he added, seeing her face fall like that of a child reproved, 'by telling me, one by one, as the days go on, about all your admirers, sanctioned and unsanctioned.'
Madame de Lamouderie's mouth twisted to one side as it attempted to discipline its answering smile and she sat very silent indeed, while Graham, looking intently from her to his canvas, set down his lines and shadows. But silence, he soon realized, was to her a disintegrating element. Under his severely impersonal gaze she collapsed into a rather dreadful rigidity. Unless he let her talk he would not capture the meretricious drama, the tragic coquetry, the pitiful beauty of
