"
"Oh, madame!"
"Is it not so?"
"Who knows, madame?" said Therese, as who should say: "What must be, must."
"Then there is a man! I suspected as much."
"But, madame la princesse, is there not always a man?"
"Then beware!"
"Madame la princesse need not fear for me," Therese replied. "Me, my head
is not so easily turned. There is always some man, naturally--there are so
many men!--but when I marry, rest assured, it will be for something more."
With the compressed lips of self-approbation she deftly assisted her
mistress to swathe her head in the mantilla-like veil.
"Something more than a man?" Sofia enquired through its folds. "What then?"
"Independence, madame la princesse."
"What an idea! Marriage and independence: how do you reconcile that
paradox?"
"Madame la princesse means love, I think, when she speaks of marriage. But
love--that is all over and done with when one marries. One is then ready to
settle down; one has put by one's dot, and marries a worthy, industrious
man with a little fortune of his own. With such a husband one collaborates
in the maintenance of the menage and the management of a small business,
something substantial if small. And so one ends one's days in comfortable
companionship. That, madame la princesse, is the marriage for Therese! It
may not sound romantic, madame, but it has this rare virtue--it lasts!"
VII
FAMILY REUNION
The London night was normal: that is to say, wet. Darkness had transformed
the streets into vast sheets of black satin shot with golden strands and
studded with lamp-posts like sturdy stems for ethereal blooms of golden
haze.
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