"Allen, Grant - Miss Cayley's Adventures 01 - The Adventure of the Cantankerous Old Lady" - читать интересную книгу автора (Allen Grant)

service; I inhabit London now pour mon agrement. Some of my
compatriots call it triste; for me, I find it the most
fascinating capital in Europe. What gaiety! What movement!
What poetry! What mystery!'

'If mystery means fog, it challenges the world,' I
interposed.

He gazed at me with fixed eyes. 'Yes, madamemoiselle,' he
answered in quite a different and markedly chilly voice.
'Whatever your great country attempts--were it only a fog--
it achieves consummately.'

I have quick intuitions. I felt the foreign gentleman
took an instinctive dislike to me.

To make up for it, he talked much, and with animation, to
Lady Georgina. They ferreted out friends in common, and
were as much surprised at it as people always are at that
inevitable experience.

'Ah yes, Madame, I recollect him well in Vienna. I was
there at the time, attached to our Legation. He was a
charming man; you read his masterly paper on the Central
Problem of the Dual Empire?'

'You were in Vienna then!' the Cantankerous Old Lady mused
back. 'Lois, my child, don't stare'--she had covenanted
from the first to call me Lois, as my father's daughter, and
I confess I preferred it to being Miss Cayley'd. 'We must
surely have met. Dare I ask your name, monsieur?'

I could see the foreign gentleman was delighted at this
turn. He had played for it, and carried his point. He
meant her to ask him. He had a card in his pocket,
conveniently close; and he handed it across to her. She
read it, and passed it on: 'M. le Comte de
Laroche-sur-Loiret.' Oh, I remember your name well,' the
Cantankerous Old Lady broke in. 'I think you knew my
husband, Sir Evelyn Fawley, and my father, Lord Kynaston.'

The Count looked profoundly surprised and delighted.
'What! you are then Lady Georgina Fawley!' he cried striking
an attitude. 'Indeed, miladi, your admirable husband was
one of the very first to exert his influence in my favour at
Vienna. Do I recall him, ce cher Sir Evelyn? If I recall
him! What a fortunate rencounter! I must have seen you
some years ago at Vienna, miladi, though I had not then the
great pleasure of making your acquaintance. But your face
had impressed itself on my sub-conscious self!' (I did not