"I was limed, there and then, old bird as I am. I was first struck with
the girl's appearance--_une belle laide_--with every movement just as it
ought to be; infinitely more attractive to me than any pink-and-white
beauty. It turned out that she had just been for a month in Paris
with another school-fellow. Something she said about a new
play--suddenly--made me look at her. 'Venez vous asseoir ici,
mademoiselle, s'il vous plait--pres de moi,' I said to her--I can hear
my own voice now, poor fool, and see her flush up. Ah!" Lady Henry's
interjection dropped to a note of rage that almost upset Sir Wilfrid's
gravity; but he restrained himself, and she resumed: "We talked for two
hours; it seemed to me ten minutes. I sent the others out to the
gardens. She stayed with me. The new French books, the theatre, poems,
plays, novels, memoirs, even politics, she could talk of them all; or,
rather--for, mark you, that's her gift--she made _me_ talk. It seemed to
me I had not been so brilliant for months. I was as good, in fact, as I
had ever been. The difficulty in England is to find any one to keep up
the ball. She does it to perfection. She never throws to
win--never!--but so as to leave you all the chances. You make a
brilliant stroke; she applauds, and in a moment she has arranged you
another. Oh, it is the most extraordinary gift of conversation--and she
never says a thing that you want to remember."

There was a silence. Lady Henry's old fingers drummed restlessly on the
table. Her memory seemed to be wandering angrily among her first
experiences of the lady they were discussing.

"Well," said Sir Wilfrid, at last, "so you engaged her as _lectrice_,
and thought yourself very lucky?"

"Oh, don't suppose that I was quite an idiot. I made some inquiries--I
bored myself to death with civilities to the stupid family she was
staying with, and presently I made her stay with me. And of course I
soon saw there was a history. She possessed jewels, laces, little
personal belongings of various kinds, that wanted explaining. So I laid
traps for her; I let her also perceive whither my own plans were
drifting. She did not wait to let me force her hand. She made up her
mind. One day I found, left carelessly on the drawing-room table, a
volume of Saint-Simon, beautifully bound in old French morocco, with
something thrust between the leaves. I opened it. On the fly-leaf was
written the name Marriott Dalrymple, and the leaves opened, a lit