第18章

"His digne epouse.Madame Galopin, for mamma, is the incarnation of European opinion.That's what vexes me with mamma, her thinking so much of people like Madame Galopin.Going to see Madame Galopin--mamma calls that being in European society.European society! I'm so sick of that expression; I have heard it since I was six years old.Who is Madame Galopin--who thinks anything of her here? She is nobody; she is perfectly third-rate.If I like America better than mamma, I also know Europe better.""But your mother, certainly," I objected, a trifle timidly, for my young lady was excited, and had a charming little passion in her eye--"your mother has a great many social relations all over the Continent.""She thinks so, but half the people don't care for us.They are not so good as we, and they know it--I'll do them that justice--and they wonder why we should care for them.When we are polite to them, they think the less of us; there are plenty of people like that.Mamma thinks so much of them simply because they are foreigners.If Icould tell you all the dull, stupid, second-rate people I have had to talk to, for no better reason than that they were de leur pays!--Germans, French, Italians, Turks, everything.When I complain, mamma always says that at any rate it's practice in the language.And she makes so much of the English, too; I don't know what that's practice in."Before I had time to suggest an hypothesis, as regards this latter point, I saw something that made me rise, with a certain solemnity, from my chair.This was nothing less than the neat little figure of Mrs.Church--a perfect model of the femme comme il faut--approaching our table with an impatient step, and followed most unexpectedly in her advance by the pre-eminent form of Mr.Ruck.She had evidently come in quest of her daughter, and if she had commanded this gentleman's attendance, it had been on no softer ground than that of his unenvied paternity to her guilty child's accomplice.My movement had given the alarm, and Aurora Church and M.Pigeonneau got up; Miss Ruck alone did not, in the local phrase, derange herself.Mrs.

Church, beneath her modest little bonnet, looked very serious, but not at all fluttered; she came straight to her daughter, who received her with a smile, and then she looked all round at the rest of us, very fixedly and tranquilly, without bowing.I must do both these ladies the justice to mention that neither of them made the least little "scene.""I have come for you, dearest," said the mother.

"Yes, dear mamma."

"Come for you--come for you," Mrs.Church repeated, looking down at the relics of our little feast."I was obliged to ask Mr.Ruck's assistance.I was puzzled; I thought a long time.""Well, Mrs.Church, I was glad to see you puzzled once in your life!"said Mr.Ruck, with friendly jocosity."But you came pretty straight for all that.I had hard work to keep up with you.""We will take a cab, Aurora," Mrs.Church went on, without heeding this pleasantry--"a closed one.Come, my daughter.""Yes, dear mamma." The young girl was blushing, yet she was still smiling; she looked round at us all, and, as her eyes met mine, Ithought she was beautiful."Good-bye," she said to us."I have had a LOVELY TIME.""We must not linger," said her mother; "it is five o'clock.We are to dine, you know, with Madame Galopin.""I had quite forgotten," Aurora declared."That will be charming.""Do you want me to assist you to carry her back, ma am?" asked Mr.

Ruck.

Mrs.Church hesitated a moment, with her serene little gaze."Do you prefer, then, to leave your daughter to finish the evening with these gentlemen?"Mr.Ruck pushed back his hat and scratched the top of his head.

"Well, I don't know.How would you like that, Sophy?""Well, I never!" exclaimed Sophy, as Mrs.Church marched off with her daughter.