Jason | Page 8

her
because the lips were neither thin nor thick, they were not drawn into
an unpleasant line by unpleasant habits, they did not pout as so many
Latin lips do, and they had at one corner a humorous expression which
she found curiously agreeable.
"You are to cherish me," Ste. Marie said. "Orders from headquarters.
How does one cherish people?" The corner of his very expressive
mouth twitched, and he grinned at her.
Miss Benham did not approve of young men who began an
acquaintance in this very familiar manner. She thought that there was a
certain preliminary and more formal stage which ought to be got
through with first, but Ste, Marie's grin was irresistible. In spite of
herself, she found that she was laughing.
"I don't quite know," she said. "It sounds rather appalling, doesn't it?
Marian has such an extraordinary fashion of hurling people at each
other's heads! She takes my breath away at times."
"Ah, well," said Ste. Marie, "perhaps we can settle upon something
when I've led you to the place where food is. And, by-the-way, what
are we waiting for? Are we not all here? There's an even number." He
broke off with a sudden exclamation of pleasure; and when Miss
Benham turned to look, she found that Baron de Vries, who had been
talking to some friends, had once more come up to where she stood.
She watched the greeting between the two men, and its quiet affection
impressed her very much. She knew Baron de Vries well, and she knew
that it was not his habit to show or to feel a strong liking for young and
idle men. This young man must be very worth while to have won the
regard of that wise old Belgian. Just then Hartley, who had been
barricaded behind a cordon of friends, came up to her in an abominable

temper over his ill luck, and a few moments later the dinner procession
was formed and they went in.
At table Miss Benham found herself between Ste. Marie and the same
strange, fair youth who had afflicted her in the drawing-room. She
looked upon him now with a sort of dismayed terror, but it developed
that there was nothing to fear from the fair youth. He had no attention
to waste upon social amenities. He fell upon his food with a wolfish
passion extraordinary to see and also--alas!--to hear. Miss Benham
turned from him to meet Ste. Marie's delighted eye.
"Tell him for me," begged that gentleman, "that soup should be
seen--not heard."
But Miss Benham gave a little shiver of disgust. "I shall tell him
nothing whatever," she said. "He's quite too dreadful, really! People
shouldn't be exposed to that sort of thing. It's not only the noises. Plenty
of very charming and estimable Germans, for example, make strange
noises at table. But he behaves like a famished dog over a bone. I
refuse to have anything to do with him. You must make up the loss to
me, M. Ste. Marie. You must be as amusing as two people." She smiled
across at him in her gravely questioning fashion. "I'm wondering," she
said, "if I dare ask you a very personal question. I hesitate because I
don't like people who presume too much upon a short
acquaintance--and our acquaintance has been very, very short, hasn't it?
even though we may have heard a great deal about each other
beforehand. I wonder--"
"Oh, I should ask it if I were you!" said Ste. Marie, at once. "I'm an
extremely good-natured person. And, besides, I quite naturally feel
flattered at your taking interest enough to ask anything about me."
"Well," said she, "it's this: Why does everybody call you just 'Ste.
Marie'? Most people are spoken of as Monsieur this or that--if there
isn't a more august title; but they all call you Ste. Marie without any
Monsieur. It seems rather odd."
Ste. Marie looked puzzled. "Why," he said, "I don't believe I know, just.

I'd never thought of that. It's quite true, of course. They never do use a
Monsieur or anything, do they? How cheeky of them! I wonder why it
is? I'll ask Hartley."
He did ask Hartley later on, and Hartley didn't know, either. Miss
Benham asked some other people, who were vague about it, and in the
end she became convinced that it was an odd and quite inexplicable
form of something like endearment. But nobody seemed to have
formulated it to himself.
"The name is really 'De Ste. Marie,'" he went on, "and there's a title that
I don't use, and a string of Christian names that one never employs. My
people were Béarnais, and there's a heap of ruins on top of a hill in the
Pyrenees where they lived. It