And she was rather like a Salon picture, a
Gervex, a Boldeni--I will not be unjust to Gertrude, she was not as
vulgar as a Boldeni. She had a pretty cooing manner, and her white
dress fell gracefully from her slender flanks. You can see her, can't
you, coming forward to meet me, rustling a little, breathing an odour
of orris root, taking my hand and very nearly pressing it against her
bosom? Gertrude knew how to suggest, and no sooner had the thought
that she wished to inspire passed through my mind than she let go my
hand, saying: 'Come, sit down by me, tell me what you have been
doing'; and her charm was that it was impossible to say whether what I
have described, dress, manner, and voice, was unconscious or
intentional."
"Probably a little of both," Doris said.
"I see you understand. You always understand."
"And to make amends for the familiarity of pressing your hand to her
bosom she would say: 'I hope you will not mind dining alone with me,'
and immediately you would propound a little theory that two is company
and three is a county council, unless indeed the three consist of two
men and one woman. A woman is never really happy unless she is talking
to two men, woman being at heart a polyandrist."
"Doris, you know me so well that you can invent my conversations.
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