"Well, it was like this. Chamberlain and I finally agreed between ourselves that the only way to get a settlement of the affair was to provide Madame Raumonier with an income sufficient to live upon for the rest of her life. He didn't grudge that, he's not a mean man, and he offered to settle five pounds a week upon her on one condition: that she cleared out of England and never crossed the Channel again." "Oh, I see. But why did you have to come to Paris to settle that?" "My dear child, Madame Raumonier is no fool. She had no notion of being cut adrift from Chamberlain and left stranded at her age--she must be at least five-and-thirty--without the certainty of a provision being made for her. I took her out to dinner one night--dined at the Trocadero--" "Yes, I saw you," said Regina. "What!" "I was there." "You were dining at the Trocadero the night I took Madame Raumonier there?" "I was." "And you never told me!" "No, Alfred, I never told you." Regina finished the last bit of omelette with relish, and sat back in her chair and waited for the rest of the story. "You never told me!" repeated Alfred. "You cooked it up--you mean to tell me that you thought I was dining with her on my own account?" "What else was I to think?" "Who were you dining with?" "I was not dining with a gentleman, at least not by myself," said Regina. "Julia and I were dining with Maudie and Harry." "And they saw--?" "They did." "And they thought--?" "They did." "That I was dining on my own with that creature! I never felt so insulted in my life." "Insulted, Alfred?" "Insulted, Queenie. When I take to dining ladies on my own, they shall be women who are something to look at. Damn it all!" he went on, "I've been accustomed to taking a smart woman about. This creature wasn't even amusing, and what's more, she's the least French of any Frenchwoman I ever came across in my life." "Well, go on. You were telling me--?" "Oh, I don't know what I was telling you--I don't know what I was telling you. Oh, well, I know, I was telling you about dining her at the Trocadero. Yes, she was willing enough to have the settlement, she was willing enough to go back to her beloved France; she hated London and everything in it--didn't know why she ever left sunny France. But like all Frenchwomen, she was a woman of business, and she didn't mean to leave go her hold upon poor old Chamberlain unless her settlement was perfectly secure. My dear, if she had been a lawyer fifty times over she couldn't have been sharper at her job." "I don't blame her," said Regina, "I never blame a woman for getting the better of a man."