Read MRS3 The Velvet Hand for Free Online

compound of boyishness and sophistication. Another notion about the French that I had to discard was that the men were all effete. Rochechouart was as fresh as a daisy, with cheeks like peonies and sparkling eyes, cornflower-blue. To be sure, he was half American, but there were many like him in Paris. It is later in life that they become hollow cheeked and blasé. To be a well-born, comely, and vigorous young man in Paris, what luck! But it needs a certain amount of imagination to appreciate it, and that he lacked.
    I was determined to be democratic. He was no more than a scatter-brained lad, I told myself, like thousands at home; nevertheless, I confess I was impressed. That magic word "Prince" cast a sort of glory around him. Why, Mme Storey had told me his ancestors went on the crusades; and coming down to comparatively recent times, his three-times-great-grandfather had been guillotined during the Terror. The thought of that long, long family roll could not but be thrilling.
    I was glad, though, that my ancestors were not in the crusades—as far as I know. Hélie still had the physique, but in the course of the centuries the moral virtues of the old stock had sadly fizzled out. To put it bluntly, he was as unprincipled a young scoundrel as you will see, but with delightful manners. His casual cynicism took my Anglo-Saxon breath away. He had only one virtue: he made no pretences. His candour, indeed, was disconcerting.
    It was not difficult to make him talk. A few glasses of 1914 Bollinger and the cork was out of his bottle. Before we reached the entremets we were in possession of his life's whole history, the most of which I would blush to set down.
    Mme Storey was looking superb, completely dressed in a certain shade of cold red that becomes her so well. Rochechouart made open love to her. It was nothing to him that he was engaged to marry another woman. My mistress listened with amused tolerance. Me he ignored, except when he remembered his manners with a start. I did not mind. I was well content to watch and listen to the comedy.
    "I understand that you are to be congratulated," said Mme Storey.
    "Well, I don't know," said the youthful cynic; "I'm going to marry Mrs. J. Eben Smith if that's what you mean. Were you surprised when you heard it?"
    "Well, yes, rather."
    "Ah, if you would only have me!" he said. "But, no! I don't want to marry you. You are too glorious. I would wish to stand in a dearer relation to you than that of husband!"
    "Nobody attaches the slightest weight to what you say, Hélie," said Mme Storey teasingly.
    "I know it!" he cried gaily. "So I can say whatever I like! How terrible to be held accountable !"
    "What will your father say?" asked Mme Storey.
    "Oh, he will make one noble gesture of indignation—and thankfully pocket the miserable sum he has been allowing me. What would you? I've got to marry. My father cannot support us both in the best society. He was disappointed in his marriage, as you may remember. My mother was an angel from heaven, but her dot was small. Just before her papa died he went bankrupt—expressly to embarrass us, I have no doubt. So it's up to me to look out for myself."
    I forgot to mention that young Hélie talked good American, scarcely to be distinguished from that of Times Square.
    "She's a good bit older than you," ventured Mme Storey.
    "Oh, well, marriage is not the serious matter it used to be. This will do very well for a while."
    "But how does she regard that?"
    "She's a woman of the world. She has no illusions."
    "Are there no younger heiresses to be had?"
    "I don't want an heiress," he said drily, "but a possessor.... If you mean a French girl," he went on, " mon dieu ! dear lady, I couldn't marry a French bourgeoise. For why? Her vulgarities are my vulgarities. I should die of it! But an American girl, her vulgarity is the engaging naïveté of the savage. Quite a different thing, you perceive. Trés-chic ....
    "I have made my tour of America as you know. I