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a manner as to convey that three volumes would scarcely
have contained the lurid facts. ‘You mustn’t be curious.’
She began to talk of Paris. She loved the boulevards and
the Bois. There was grace in every street, and the trees in
the Champs Elysees had a distinction which trees had not
elsewhere. They were sitting on a stile now by the high-road,
and Miss Wilkinson looked with disdain upon the stately
elms in front of them. And the theatres: the plays were bril-
liant, and the acting was incomparable. She often went with
Madame Foyot, the mother of the girls she was educating,
when she was trying on clothes.
‘Oh, what a misery to be poor!’ she cried. ‘These beautiful
things, it’s only in Paris they know how to dress, and not to
be able to afford them! Poor Madame Foyot, she had no fig-
ure. Sometimes the dressmaker used to whisper to me: ‘Ah,
Mademoiselle, if she only had your figure.’ ‘
Philip noticed then that Miss Wilkinson had a robust
form and was proud of it.
‘Men are so stupid in England. They only think of the
face. The French, who are a nation of lovers, know how
much more important the figure is.’
Philip had never thought of such things before, but he
observed now that Miss Wilkinson’s ankles were thick and
ungainly. He withdrew his eyes quickly.
‘You should go to France. Why don’t you go to Paris for
a year? You would learn French, and it would—deniaiser
you.’
‘What is that?’ asked Philip.
She laughed slyly.

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