"
"My dear Marie," declared Colonel Menendez, "I have seen you blush
perfectly."
"No, no," Madame disclaimed the suggestion with one of those Bernhardt
gestures, "I blushed my last blush when my second husband introduced me
to my first husband's wife."
"Madame!" exclaimed Val Beverley, "how can you say such things?" She
turned to me. "Really, Mr. Knox, they are all fables."
"In fables we renew our youth," said Madame.
"Ah," sighed Colonel Menendez; "our youth, our youth."
"Why sigh, Juan, why regret?" cried Madame, immediately. "Old age is
only tragic to those who have never been young."
She directed a glance toward him as she spoke those words, and as I had
felt when I had seen his tragic face on the veranda that morning I felt
again in detecting this look of Madame de Staemer's. The yearning yet
selfless love which it expressed was not for my eyes to witness.
"Thank God, Marie," replied the Colonel, and gallantly kissed his hand
to her, "we have both been young, gloriously young."
When, at the termination of this truly historic dinner, the ladies left
us:
"Remember, Juan," said Madame, raising her white, jewelled hand, and
holding the fingers characteristically curled, "no excitement, no
billiards, no cards.
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