“Enjoying myself,” she said.

“Oh!” answered Soames glumly.  “Ribbandry, I suppose.”

It was his word for all that incomprehensible running in and out of shops that women went in for.  “Has Fleur got her summer dresses?”

“You don’t ask if I have mine.”

“You don’t care whether I do or not.”

“Quite right.  Well, she has; and I have mine—­terribly expensive.”

“H’m!” said Soames.  “What does that chap Profond do in England?”

Annette raised the eyebrows she had just finished.

“He yachts.”

“Ah!” said Soames; “he’s a sleepy chap.”

“Sometimes,” answered Annette, and her face had a sort of quiet enjoyment.  “But sometimes very amusing.”

“He’s got a touch of the tar-brush about him.”

Annette stretched herself.

“Tar-brush?” she said.  “What is that?  His mother was Armenienne.”

“That’s it, then,” muttered Soames.  “Does he know anything about pictures?”

“He knows about everything—­a man of the world.”

“Well, get some one for Fleur.  I want to distract her.  She’s going off on Saturday to Val Dartie and his wife; I don’t like it.”

“Why not?”

Since the reason could not be explained without going into family history, Soames merely answered: 

“Racketing about.  There’s too much of it.”

“I like that little Mrs. Val; she is very quiet and clever.”

“I know nothing of her except—­This thing’s new.”  And Soames took up a creation from the bed.

Annette received it from him.

“Would you hook me?” she said.

Soames hooked.  Glancing once over her shoulder into the glass, he saw the expression on her face, faintly amused, faintly contemptuous, as much as to say:  “Thanks!  You will never learn!” No, thank God, he wasn’t a Frenchman!  He finished with a jerk, and the words:  “It’s too low here.”  And he went to the door, with the wish to get away from her and go down to Fleur again.

Annette stayed a powder-puff, and said with startling suddenness

“Que to es grossier!”

He knew the expression—­he had reason to.  The first time she had used it he had thought it meant “What a grocer you are!” and had not known whether to be relieved or not when better informed.  He resented the word—­he was not coarse!  If he was coarse, what was that chap in the room beyond his, who made those horrible noises in the morning when he cleared his throat, or those people in the Lounge who thought it well-bred to say nothing but what the whole world could hear at the top of their voices—­quacking inanity!  Coarse, because he had said her dress was low!  Well, so it was!  He went out without reply.