“All right,” he muttered grimly. “I’ll listen, but I’m damned if I’ll write anything down in the little book.”
When they returned to the salon La Marquise had provided herself with various letters, folders, and descriptive circulars about the institution for which she was now soliciting aid. They seated themselves around the fire again, with coffee and liqueurs; by the time La Marquise had finished the description of her hospital project, the grey light of the brief wintry afternoon was fading rapidly, and the time for their departure had approached.
Before they left she took them on a brief tour of inspection of the château, showing them the portraits of her ancestors, the great room with the huge, gold-canopied bed where King Henri IV had slept, on one of his visits to the château—unoccupied since, now closed save for museum visits such as this.
Their last visit, before departure, was to the library: it was a pleasant, warm-looking room adjacent to the grand salon, and had the appearance of being seldom used. La Marquise smiled at the eager curiosity with which the young man looked over the storeyed rows of books, the costly elegance and rich colour of their bindings.
“You like to reat, eh?”
He told her that he did. She smiled, and said indifferently:
“I do not like so motch. It bore me ven I reat so long.”
He asked her a few questions about some of the modern French writers—Proust, Gide, Romains, and Cocteau, among others, for a moment her face was hardened by the arrogant look it had worn when he had asked her about the government, and she said rather impatiently:
“I know nozzing about zose pipple. Yes, I have heard of some of zem. But I never reat zem. Zere is no good writing in France any more. Ze latest s’ing I have here,”—she nodded towards the shelves of books—“is Paul Bourget. But I never reat him, eizer.”
In a few moments they had said farewell and were being driven away from the château. Rain had begun to fall again, the dull, grey light was almost gone and, since there was no convenient train, La Marquise had instructed her driver to take them back to Blois in the car.
During the ride back to town he spoke seldom to the Countess. And she, as if recognizing the impatience, weariness and dislike he had come to feel towards her, the approaching end of their brief and curious relationship,
