Hubert
regretted that she had not worn it--the peacocks could have been
exchanged for its vivid note of scarlet. Pretending not to have heard
her speech, he gravely saluted the mother and daughter. But Berenice was
unabashed.
"Mamma was wondering if you would visit us to-night, Monsieur Falcroft,
when I saw you staring at us as if we were ghosts." A burst of malicious
laughter followed.
"Berenice, Berenice," remonstrated her mother, "when will you cease such
tasteless remarks!" She blushed in her pretty matronly fashion and put
her hand on her daughter's mouth.
"Don't mind her, Madame Mineur! I like to meet a French girl with a
little unconventionality. Berenice reminds me now of an English girl--"
"Or one of your own countrywomen!" interrupted Berenice; "and
please--_Miss_, after this, I am a grown young lady." He joined in the
merriment. She was not to be resisted and he wished--no, he did not
wish--but he thought, that if he were younger, what gay days he might
have. Yet he admired her mother much more. Elaine Cot-Mineur was an
old-fashioned woman, gentle, reserved, and at the age when her beauty
had a rare autumnal quality--the very apex of its perfection; in a few
years, in a year, perhaps, the change would come and crabbed winter set
in.
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