glancing through the open door of the dining-room, noticing the hot-house grapes, the pink roses, screwing up her eyes to read the label on the champagne-bottle from which Paul was filling up the glasses. Then she pushed Carolientje before her and departed, slamming the front-door after her. . . .
Constance went back to the dining-room. Her nerves were shaken, but she kept a good countenance.
“It was Adolphine, wasn’t it?” asked Paul.
“Yes, but she wouldn’t come in,” said Constance. “It’s such a pity, she’s such good company. . . .”
She did not mean it, but she wished to mean it. That she said so was not hypocrisy on her part. Any other evening, after Adolphine’s comments, all in five minutes, on her house, her street, her candles, her fires, her dress and her complexion, she would probably have flung herself at full length on her sofa, to recover from the annoyance of it. But now she was the hostess; and she showed no discomposure and asked the men not to mind her and to stay and smoke their cigars with her, at the dinner-table. She herself poured out the coffee, from her dainty little silver-gilt service, and the liqueurs; and, when Paul asked her if she would not smoke a cigarette, she answered, with her pretty expression and the little laugh at the bend of her lips which made her so young that night and caused her to look so very charming:
“No, I used to smoke, in my flighty days; but I gave it up long ago.”
