ever go elsewhere. You shall pass your old age in a big chair in the best room, and Camille and I will nurse your gout and make herb-tea for you."
"And I shall sit and think of what might have been."
"Yes, we'll indulge all your little foibles. You shall sit and feel foolish from dawn to dewy eve."
XII
If you had chanced to be walking in the Bois-de-Boulogne this afternoon, you might have seen a smart little basket-phaeton flash past, drawn by two glossy bays, and driven by a woman a woman with sparkling eyes, a lovely colour, great quantities of soft dark hair, and a figure—
"Hélas, mon père, la taille d'une déesse"—
a smiling woman, in a wonderful blue-grey toilet, grey driving-gloves, and a bold-brimmed grey-felt hat with waving plumes. And in the man beside her you would have recognised your servant. You would have thought me in great luck, perhaps you would have envied me. But—esse, quam videri!—I would I were as enviable as I looked.
