"Teddy, you will marry the first pretty woman who makes up her mind to marry you," she said, tapping the table, amid laughter. "I see it; I know it." "I say, how do you see it?" said Holliday, who was what might be called "_un faux Anglais_." "It is in the eye; it responds or it does not respond," said Mme. Fornez, who shrugged her shoulders in Holliday’s direction, and said: "You, you will never marry unless—unless there is one _big_ panic. Teddy, here, has the responsive eye. I saw it at once when I said he was a nice boy. Oh, you needn’t be furious and blush," she added, pulling his other ear. "It is quite right. I like you. You shall play with me. You are much nicer than Bobbie, who is all collar and cuffs." "And Mr. Gunther?" said Beecher, to cover his confusion. Mme. Fornez looked at him with the same critical estimation. "Ah, Monsieur Gunthère is very interesting," she said. "What do you think, Madame Fontaine?" She asked the question with a little of that malice which women can not help showing toward one another. But Mrs. Fontaine, with the perfect control that never left her, answered at once: "Bruce will marry, but he is not the marrying kind. He will marry when he pleases and how he pleases, not the least sentimentally, a woman, a young girl, who will raise up a family of children—a son to succeed him, as he will succeed his father." "Yes, yes, that’s it," said Mme. Fornez excitedly. "He can not be caught; any woman would know that." Gunther smiled without embarrassment. "Perhaps," he said. "Yes, any woman would know it," repeated Mrs. Fontaine, looking at him with a little smile. "The reason is, as Madame Fornez says, in the eyes—they don’t respond. It’s more than that, they make no distinction. They look at a woman as they do at a man. He is quite to be congratulated." "Ah, _la pauvre femme_," said Mme. Fornez—who was very romantic—in a whisper, pressing Beecher’s arm. Then aloud, taking pity, "_Allons, mes enfants_, we are getting too serious. Bobbie, jump up and play us something lively." The dinner continued gaily. They reached the theater in the middle of the second act of the operetta, and deranged the whole orchestra in the five minutes necessary for Mme. Fornez to be sure that she was properly recognized. Then, having carried off Elsie Ware, a dainty prima donna with the wiles and figure of a child, they proceeded to the party at Lindabury’s studio, Mme. Fornez complimenting Elsie Ware on the quality of her voice, which was insignificant, and saying nothing of her acting, which was distinguished for its charm and natural gaiety.