poke French quite perfectly, with exactly
the same idiomatic ease as the Frenchman. Lucas neither spoke nor
understood French--he had been to a great public school. Nevertheless
these three attained positive loquacity. Lucas guessed at words, or the
Frenchman obliged with bits of English, or Laurencine interpreted.
Laurencine was far less prim and far more girlish than at the Cafe
Royal. She kept all the freshness of her intensely virginal quality, but
she was at ease. Her rather large body was at ease, continually restless
in awkward and exquisite gestures; she laughed at ease, and made fun at
ease. She appeared to have no sex-consciousness, nor even to suspect
that she was a most delightful creature. The conversation was disjointed
in its gaiety, and had no claim to the attention of the serious.
Laurencine said that Lucas ought really to know French. Lucas said he
would learn if she would teach him. Laurencine said that she would teach
him if he would have his first lesson instantly, during dinner. Lucas
said that wasn't fair. Laurencine said that it was. Both of them
appealed to M. Defourcambault. M. Defourcambault said that it was fair.
Lucas said that there was a plot between them, but that he would consent
to learn at once if Laurencine would play the piano for him after
dinner. Laurencine said she didn't play. Lucas said she did. M.
Defourcambault, invoked once again, said that she played magnificently.
Laurencine blushed, and asked M. Defourcambault how he could!... And so
on, indefinitely. It was all naught; yet the taciturn three, smiling
indulgently and glancing from one to another of the talkers, as taciturn
and constrained persons must, envied that peculiar ability to maintain a
rush and gush of chatter.

George was greatly disappointed in Lois. In the period before dinner his
eyes had avoided her, and now, since they sat side by side, he could not
properly see her without deliberately looking at her: which he would not
do. She gave no manifestation. She was almost glum. Her French, though
free, was markedly inferior to Laurencine's. She denied any interest in
music. George decided, with self-condemnation, that he had been
deliberately creating in his own mind an illusion about her; on no other
hypothesis could either his impatience to meet her to-night, or his
disappointment at not meeting her on the night of the Cafe Royal dinner,
be explained. She was nothing, after all. And he did not deeply care for
Mi