He spoke to her in French, with a slight,
unmistakable English accent, but very good, easy, conversational
French--French French. She responded almost ecstatically:
"Ah, you speak French!"
She was too excited to play the usual comedy, so flattering to most
Englishmen, of pretending that she thought from his speech that he was
a Frenchman. The French so well spoken from a man's mouth in London
most marvellously enheartened her and encouraged her in the perilous
enterprise of her career. She was candidly grateful to him for
speaking French.
He said after a moment:
"You have not at all a fatigued air, but would it not be preferable to
sit down?"
A man of the world! He could phrase his politeness. Ah! There
were none like an Englishman of the world. Frenchmen, delightfully
courteous up to a point, were unsatisfactory past that point.
Frenchmen of the south were detestable, and she hated them.
"You have not been in London long?" said the man, leading her away to
the lounge.
She observed then that, despite his national phlegm, he was in a state
of rather intense excitation. Luck! Enormous luck! And also an augury
for the future! She was professing in London for the first time in her
life; she had not been in the Promenade for five minutes; and lo! the
ideal admirer.
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