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Updated: September 16, 2025
And at Madame d'Alglade's sale yes, I went there after all, just for a minute, because I found Katy and Nannie were so anxious to be taken well, that day I noticed that Madame de Treymes was quite empressee when we went up to her stall. Oh, I didn't buy anything: I merely waited while the girls chose some lampshades.
"Well, she knows us," said Durham, catching in Madame de Malrive's rapid glance, a startled assent to his point. "After all," reflected the accurate Katy, as though seeking an excuse for Madame de Treymes' unenlightenment, "we don't know many French people, either." To which Nannie promptly if obscurely retorted: "Ah, but we couldn't and she could!"
At the time of Madame de Malrive's separation, the court made no difficulty about giving her the custody of her son; and you must pardon me for reminding you that the father's unfitness was the reason alleged." Madame de Treymes shrugged her shoulders.
But Mr. Boykin was tremulously alive to hints, and the conversation at once slid to safer topics, easy generalizations which left Madame de Treymes ample time to explore the table, to use her narrowed gaze like a knife slitting open the unsuspicious personalities about her.
Madame de Treymes raised herself with a slight start at Durham's approach: she had her hat on, and had evidently paused a moment on her way out to speak with Nannie, without expecting to be surprised by her sister-in-law's other visitor. But her surprises never wore the awkward form of embarrassment, and she smiled beautifully on Durham as he took her extended hand.
Boykin, at this point, advanced across the wide expanse of Aubusson on which his wife and Durham were islanded in a state of propinquity without privacy. "What's that, Bessy? Hah, Durham, how are you? Didn't see you at Auteuil this afternoon. You don't race? Busy sight-seeing, I suppose? What was that my wife was telling you? Oh, about Madame de Treymes."
Whether or not the desired result was achieved, Madame de Treymes' manner did not specifically declare; but it showed a general complaisance, a charming willingness to be amused, which made Mr. Boykin, for months afterward, allude to her among his compatriots as "an old friend of my wife's takes potluck with us, you know. Of course there's not a word of truth in any of those ridiculous stories."
"But could no one else ask her? Who are her friends?" "She has a great many; and some, of course, are mine. But in a case like this they would be all hers; they wouldn't hesitate a moment between us." "Why should it be necessary to hesitate between you? Suppose Madame de Treymes sees the reasonableness of what you ask; suppose, at any rate, she sees the hopelessness of opposing you?
It was an odd circumstance of the case that, though Madame de Treymes' avowal of duplicity was fresh in his ears, he did not for a moment believe that she would deceive him again. Whatever passed between them now would go to the root of the matter. The first thing that passed was the long look they exchanged: searching on his part, tender, sad, undefinable on hers.
Durham struggled between the sentimental impulse to soothe her, and the practical instinct that it was a moment for unmitigated frankness. "I'm not sure that I do; but if you can't find out what Madame de Treymes thinks, I'll see what I can do myself."
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