they were as beautifully smooth as her voice when she
admitted: »That protection naturally is only partial. There is the danger of her
own self, poor girl. She requires guidance.«
    I marvelled at the villainy of my tone as I spoke, but it was only assumed.
    »I don't think she has done badly for herself, so far,« I forced myself to
say. »I suppose you know that she began life by herding the village goats.«
    In the course of that phrase I noticed her wince just the least bit. Oh,
yes, she winced; but at the end of it she smiled easily.
    »No, I didn't know. So she told you her story! Oh, well, I suppose you are
very good friends. A goatherd - really? In the fairy tale I believe the girl
that marries the prince is - what is it? - a gardeuse d'oies. And what a thing
to drag out against a woman. One might just as soon reproach any of them for
coming unclothed into the world. They all do, you know. And then they become -
what you will discover when you have lived longer, Monsieur George - for the
most part futile creatures, without any sense of truth and beauty, drudges of
all sorts, or else dolls to dress. In a word - ordinary.«
    The implication of scorn in her tranquil manner was immense. It seemed to
condemn all those that were not born in the Blunt connection. It was the perfect
pride of Republican aristocracy, which has no gradations and knows no limit,
and, as if created by the grace of God, thinks it ennobles everything it
touches: people, ideas, even passing tastes!
    »How many of them,« pursued Mrs. Blunt, »have had the good fortune, the
leisure to develop their intelligence and their beauty in æsthetic conditions as
this charming woman had? Not one in a million. Perhaps not one in an age.«
    »The heiress of Henry Allègre,« I murmured.
    »Precisely. But John wouldn't be marrying the heiress of Henry Allègre.«
    It was the first time that the frank word, the clear idea, came into the
conversation and it made me feel ill with a sort of enraged faintness.
    »No,« I said. »It would be Mme. de Lastaola then.«
    »Mme. la Comtesse de Lastaola as soon as she likes after the success of this
war.«
    »And you believe in its success?«
    »Do you?