"Oh, come, now"--he paused a moment as the waiter ladled out their soup. "I defy you to find anywhere a finer type than our English girls. Look at their skin--their teeth--their hair--the healthy, well-bred look of them. Oh, no--I grant, there's charm, and style and an inborn sense of dress in foreign women and they're generally witty and can talk fourteen to the dozen! But give me an English girl"--his thoughts flashed back to Cydonia---"unless," he added somewhat quickly--"unless, of course, I can have Fantine." "Ah! merci----" she clapped her hands--"I'm the exception to prove the rule? But, seriously, I think you're biassed, though part of what you say is true. They've everything to make them perfect, these rose-leaf tinted, long-limbed girls--everything! That's what annoys me--save the wit to profit by Nature's gifts. It's such a prodigal waste of beauty ... Look at that girl at the end table----" she lowered her voice as she spoke--"with the colouring of Titian's 'Flora.' And she wears--bon Dieu!--an orange blouse. Because she's taking Tango lessons! And with it a cheap amethyst necklace. Someone has told her--without doubt!--they're Queen Alexandra's favorite stones. Her hat? Yes--it cost two guineas. So she compromised with shoes from a Sale and last year's skirt, taken in rather badly round the ankles. What a hotch-potch!--bound about that divine figure--ruined by cheap corsets--and yes! I was sure of it--a hole in a pair of openwork thread stockings!" "I give in!----" McTaggart laughed--"or I know you won't enjoy your dinner. You see I'm half-Italian, too, so it's not real disloyalty." She looked up, interested. "Tiens! Perhaps it explains your ... un-English charm? On your mother's side, I suppose?" "Yes. She was a Maramonte. They've lived for centuries at Siena. I believe they've got a palace there a good bit older than the Tower! But I've never met my relations. My uncle is the present marquis--with two sons and a second wife. So there's no chance for me as heir--beyond what was left me by my mother."