"In my young
days, our enemies were our enemies and our friends our friends. Nowadays
nothing seems to matter. You may call a man a scoundrel one day and ask
him to dinner the next. We seem to use words in a new sense--and I
confess I don't like the change. Well, Mary, I sha'n't, of course, be
rude to any friend of yours. But don't expect me to be effusive. And
please remember that my acquaintance with Geoffrey Cliffe is older than
yours."
Mary made a caressing reply, and gave her mind for the rest of the drive
to the smoothing of Lady Tranmore's ruffled plumes. But it was not easy.
As that lady made her way up the crowded staircase of the French
Embassy, her fine face was still absent and a little stern.
Mary could only reflect that she had at least got through a first
explanation which was bound to be made. Then for a few minutes her mind
surrendered itself wholly to the question, "Will he be here?"
* * * * *
The rooms of the French Embassy were already crowded. An ambassador,
short, stout, and somewhat morose, his plain features and snub nose
emerging with difficulty from his thick, fair hair, superabundant beard,
and mustache--with an elegant and smiling ambassadress, personifying
amid the English crowd that Paris from which through every fibre she
felt herself a pining exile--received the guests.
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