England -- Fiction; Man-woman relationships -- Fiction; Mothers and daughters -- Fiction; Paris (France) -- Fiction; Women -- Fiction
The ordering was always summarised and explained by Musa in a few phrases
which, to Audrey, sounded very different from the French of Tommy and Nick.
And she took oath that she would instantly begin to learn to speak French,
not like Tommy and Nick, whose accent she cruelly despised, but like Musa.
Then Tommy and Nick removed their cloaks, and sat displayed as a geisha and
a contadina, respectively. Musa had already unmasked his devilry. The café
was not in the least disturbed by these gorgeous and strange apparitions.
An orchestra began to play. Lobster arrived, and high glasses full of
glinting green. Audrey ate and drank with gusto, with innocence, with the
intensest love of life. And she was the most beautiful and touching sight
in the café-restaurant. Miss Ingate, grinning, caught her eye with joyous
mockery. "We are going it, aren't we, Audrey?" shrieked Miss Ingate.
Miss Thompkins and Miss Nickall began slowly to differentiate themselves in
Audrey's mind. At first they were merely two American girls--the first
Audrey had met. They were of about the same age--whatever that age might
be--and if they were not exactly of the same age, then Tommy with red hair
was older than Nick with grey hair. Indeed, Nick took the earliest
opportunity to remark that her hair had turned grey at nineteen. They both
had dreamy eyes that looked through instead of looking at; they were both
hazy concerning matters of fact; they were both attached like a couple of
aunts to Musa, who nestled between them like a cat between two cushions;
they were both extraordinarily friendly and hospitable; they both painted
and both had studios--in the same house; they both showed quite a
remarkable admiration and esteem for all their acquaintances; and they both
lacked interest in their complexions and their hair.
The resemblance did not go very much farther. Tommy, for all her praising
of friends, was of a critical, curious, and analytical disposition, and her
greenish eyes were always at work qualifying in a very subtle manner what
her tongue said, when her tongue was benevolent, as it often was. Feminism
and suffragism being the tie between the new acquaintances, these subjects
were the first material of conversation, and an empress of militancy known
to the world as "Rosamund" having been mentioned, Miss Ingate said with
enthusiasm:
"She lives only for one thing."
"Yes," replied Tommy. "And if she got it, I guess no one would be more
disgusted than she herself."
There was an instant's silence.
"Oh, Tommy!" Nick lovingly protested.
Said Miss Ingate with a comprehending satiric grin:
"I see what you mean. I quite see. I quite see. You're right, Miss
Thompkins. I'm sure you're right."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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