"Including the vice of indiscriminate hospitality," Patrine laughed; but a little uncontrollable shudder rippled over her as she withdrew her eyes from the painted, crumpled visage, leering with half-extinguished eyes from under the canary-coloured wig. "That is so. Tell me—you and Lady Beauvayse seem great friends—quite inseparable...." He leaned nearer, his bold eyes closely scrutinising her face. "How comes it that she leaves you alone in a Paris dance-garden: with me, whom you have met to-night—for the first time?" "She knows I can take jolly good care of myself, wherever and with whomsoever I may happen to be!" Her black brows frowned; it was evident she resented his criticism. "And—what are you getting at? What’s the matter with poor old Paris? You know—perhaps it sounds odd!—but I’ve never been in Paris before.... And I love it! Down to the ground—it suits me! It’s so gay and brightly-coloured and pagan. The public buildings and parks are dreams; the shops—too entrancing for anything! And this place, with its jabber and music and stagy illuminations, trellises where real roses mix up with artificial ones—ornamental beds of geraniums and calceolarias and thingumbobs bordered with smelly little oil lamps, gilt band-stands, concerts, and lovely trees in blossom.... Is it so luridly awful? To me, it’s rather sweet! Of course the dancing—everybody knows the dancing is pretty well the limit. But one has seen such a lot of Tango in London—the bloom will be pretty well rubbed off!" "Yet some lingers. You have still something to learn from Herculano and La Rivadavia! ..." "Do I strike you as such a perfect daisy of inexperience?" Something in his tone stung, for the full white cheeks coloured faintly. "You didn’t talk to me at dinner as though I were one!" "How could I help that?" he asked, with the roughness that had previously intrigued her. "Am I to blame that you look like Phryne or Aspasia when you are only Mademoiselle de Maupin—before she set out upon her travels? For you have only got as far as Paris with your friend Lady Beauvayse. Why does she bring you? I am curious to know."