"Well,--m--perhaps, Clara," he began, peering from
under the shaggy eyebrows, "it would be best for a delicate child like
Ettie--"
Mrs. Le Geyt smiled a compassionate smile. "Ah, I forgot," she cooed,
sweetly. "Dear Hugo never CAN understand the upbringing of children. It
is a sense denied him. We women know"--with a sage nod. "They were wild
little savages when I took them in hand first--weren't you, Maisie? Do
you remember, dear, how you broke the looking-glass in the boudoir, like
an untamed young monkey? Talking of monkeys, Mr. Cotswould, HAVE you
seen those delightful, clever, amusing French pictures at that place in
Suffolk Street? There's a man there--a Parisian--I forget his honoured
name--Leblanc, or Lenoir, or Lebrun, or something--but he's a most
humorous artist, and he paints monkeys and storks and all sorts of queer
beasties ALMOST as quaintly and expressively as you do. Mind, I say
ALMOST, for I never will allow that any Frenchman could do anything
QUITE so good, quite so funnily mock-human, as your marabouts and
professors."
"What a charming hostess Mrs. Le Geyt makes," the painter observed to
me, after lunch. "Such tact! Such discrimination!.
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