For
women love power, but they do not care to wield it at a distance.
Paul was asked to take Mrs. Sydney Bamborough down to dinner by the lady
herself.
"Mon ami," she said in a quiet aside to De Chauxville, before making her
request, "it is the first time the prince dines here."
She spoke in French. Maggie and Paul were talking together at the other
end of the room. De Chauxville bowed in silence.
At dinner the conversation was necessarily general, and, as such, is not
worth reporting. No general conversation, one finds, is of much value
when set down in black and white. It is not even grammatical nowadays.
To be more correct, let us note that the talk lay between Etta and M. de
Chauxville, who had a famous supply of epigrams and bright nothings
delivered in such a way that they really sounded like wisdom. Etta was
equal to him, sometimes capping his sharp wit, sometimes contenting
herself with silvery laughter. Maggie Delafield was rather distraite, as
De Chauxville noted. The girl's dislike for him was an iron that entered
the quick of his vanity anew every time he saw her. There was no
petulance in the aversion, such as he had perceived with other maidens
who were only resenting a passing negligence or seeking to pique his
curiosity. This was a steady and, if you will, unmaidenly aversion,
which Maggie conscientiously attempted to conceal.
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