This page has been validated.
Elizabeth's Pretenders
225

taking me back to England, and I hate going. But I should be more unhappy if I remained."

Mdme. Clinchaut. "But you will come back to Paris to paint—no?"

Mdme. Martineau. "Yes, yes; monsieur is coming back. They do not paint in England, I am told."

George. "Oh yes, madame, they do. Only their teaching, except at the Slade School———"

Eliza. (half aside). "Oh! that Slade School again!"

Elton. "Quite as good. No use coming here for that. I think you said you had never been in England, madame?"

Mdme. M. "Ah, no! I was near to going once. I had a friend who lived in le Cantorbury———"

Mdme. de B. (under her breath). "Près du 'Petit Saint Thomas.'"

The Professor (sardonically). "We have heard of him. The fact is, monsieur, we French are the worst travellers in the world. There is not one of us here, I believe, who has ever been out of France. (Here a hubbub of voices begins again, out of which the only articulate words are "Jamais de la vie!")

Morin (shaking his head). "As Madame Martineau says, it is that crossing. Were it not for that, I—I who speak to you would———"

Elton. "What! deterred by an hour and twenty minutes' sea? And there are Mr. Baring and his sister who tell me they have crossed the Atlantic sixteen times!"

Baring. "On business—not for pleasure; though my sister, I think, is never so well as at sea."