Mather, Frank Jewett / 2008-09-23 00:00:00

With a phrase
she subdued me, and my halting French began to be eloquent. I confessed
my innermost ambition, the creation of a criticism learned and judicial
in substance but impressionistic in form. She dwelt upon the beauties of
her eyrie in the Basque mountains which I must one day see. As we chatted
on obliviously an audience of marvelling art students and baigneurs
formed about us quietly. Their serried faces suddenly revealed to me my
ignominious surrender. I started as from a dream and, as she bade me not
forget to call, I kissed her long hand and fled with only a curt farewell
to my hostess.
The channel breeze and the scent of the clover sobered me up. My pity
went out to Anitchkoff and then I remembered that I had seen Fouquart
at the Casino. It seemed too good to be true. Here at Dieppe were both
this enigmatic Marquesa and the prime repository of all authentic
scandal of our times. For the old dandy Fouquart had lived not wisely
but too well through three generations of cosmopolitan gallantry. Had
the censorship and his literary parts permitted, he could have written
a chronicle of famous ladies that would put the Sieur de Brantome's
modest attempt to shame. I found him among the rabble, moodily playing
the little horses for five-franc pieces, but at the mention of the
Marquesa del Puente he kindled.
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