"And I don't suppose your great-grandmother would think yours at all pretty, either, Mademoiselle Jeanne," said Dudu, with the queer sort of croak which he used for a laugh. "It is one of the things that has amazed me very much in my observations--the strange fancies the human race has about clothes. Of course you are not so fortunate as we are in having them ready-made, but still I cannot understand why you don't do the best you can--adopt a pattern and keep to it always. It would be the next best thing to having feathers, _I_ should say." "I don't think so," said Jeanne. "It would be very stupid every morning when you got up, and every time you were going out, or friends coming to see you, or anything like that--it would be _very_ stupid never to have to think, 'What shall I put on?' or to plan what colours would look nice together. There would hardly be any use in having shops or dressmakers, or anything. And _certainly_, Monsieur Dudu, I wouldn't choose to be dressed like you, never anything but black--as if one were always going to a funeral." "It is all a matter of taste, Mademoiselle," replied Dudu, so amiably that Hugh wondered more and more at his politeness to Jeanne, who was certainly not very civil to him. "For my part, I confess I have always had a great fancy for white--the force of contrast, I suppose--and this brings me back to telling you how very nice your great-grandmother and her sister looked that day walking up and down the terrace path in their white dresses." "My great-grandmother!" exclaimed Jeanne. "Why, you said 'our young ladies.'"