"She is an angel of beauty!" she said, "and Miladi Winsleigh is jealous--ah, Dieu! jealous to death of her! She is innocent too--like a baby--and she worships her husband. That is an error! To worship a man is a great mistake--she will find it so. Men are not to be too much loved--no, no!"
Briggs smiled in superb self-consciousness. "Well, well! I will not deny, Mamzelle, that it spoils us," he said complacently. "It certainly spoils us! 'When lovely woman stoops to folly,'--the hold, hold story!"
"You will r-r-r-emember," said Mamzelle, suddenly stepping up very close to him and speaking with a strong accent, "what I have said to-night! Monsieur Briggs, you will r-remember! There will be mees-cheef! Yes--there will be mees-cheef to Sieur Bruce-Errington, and when there is,--I--I, Louise Rénaud--I know who ees at the bottom of eet!"
So saying, with a whirl of her black silk dress and a flash of her white muslin apron, she disappeared. Briggs, left alone, sauntered to a looking-glass hanging on the wall and studied with some solicitude a pimple that had recently appeared on his clean-shaven face.
"Mischief!" he soliloquized. "I des-say! Whenever a lot of women gets together, there's sure to be mischief. Dear creeturs! They love it like the best Clicquot. Sprightly young pusson is Mamzelle. Knows who's at the bottom of 'eet,' does she! Well--she's not the only one as knows the same thing. As long as doors 'as cracks and key'oles, it ain't in the least difficult to find out wot goes on inside boo-dwars and drorin'-rooms. And 'ighly interestin' things one 'ears now and then--'ighly interestin'!"
And Briggs leered suavely at his own reflection, and then resumed the perusal of his paper. He was absorbed in the piquant, highly flavored details of a particularly disgraceful divorce case, and he was by no means likely to disturb himself from his refined enjoyment for any less important reason than the summons of Lord Winsleigh's bell, which rang so seldom that, when it did, he made it a point of honor to answer it immediately, for, as he said-"His lordship knows wot is due to me, and I knows wot is due to 'im--therefore it 'appens we are able to ekally respect each other!"