“It is good of you to return my call so soon,” she said, in a friendly voice. “You have walked, I suppose, all the way from the Villa des Dunes. English girls are such great walkers now--a most excellent thing. I belong to the semi-generation older than yours, which preferred a carriage. I am an atrocious walker. You are not at all like your brother.” And she threw back her head and looked speculatively at her visitor. “Sit down,” she said, with a laugh. “You probably came here harbouring a prejudice against me. One should never get to know a woman through her men-folk. That is a rule almost without exception; you may take it from one who is many years older than you. But--well, _nous verrons_. Perhaps we are the exception.”
“I hope so,” answered Dorothy, who was ready enough of speech. “At all events, all that Percy told me made me anxious to meet you. It is rather lonely, you know, at the Villa des Dunes. You see, Percy is engaged all day with his malgamiters. And, of course, we know no one here yet.”
“There is Herr von Holzen,” suggested Mrs. Vansittart, ringing the bell for tea.
“Oh yes. The man who is associated with Percy at the works? I do not know him. Percy has not brought him to the villa.”
“Ah! Is that so? That is nice of your brother. Sometimes men, you know, make use of their wives or their sisters to help them in their business relationships. I have known a man use his pretty daughter to gain a client. Beauty levels all, you see. Not nice, no; I suppose Herr von Holzen, is--well--let us call him a foreign savant. Such a nice broad term, you know; covers such a plentiful lack of soap.” And she laughed easily, with eyes that were quite grave and alert.
“My brother does not say much about him,” answered Dorothy Roden. “Percy never does tell me much of his affairs, and I am not sorry. I am sure I should not understand them. Stocks and shares and freights and things. I never quite know whether a freight is part of a ship; do you?”
“No. There are so many things more useful to know, are there not?--things about people and human nature, for instance.”
“Yes,” said Dorothy, looking at her companion thoughtfully--“yes.”
And Mrs. Vansittart returned that thoughtful glance. “And the other man,” she said suddenly, “Mr.--Cornish--do you know him?”