"Mary Stewart - Madam will you talk" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stewart Mary)

But I did not know, so I unpacked my things slowly and carefully, while,
on my bed, Louise lay and smoked and talked about the mosquitoes.

"And now--a fortnight," she said dreamily. "A whole fortnight. And
nothing to do but drink, and sit in the sun."

"No eating? Or are you on a cure?"

"Oh, that. One's almost forgotten how. But they tell me that in France
the cattle still grow steaks ... I wonder how I shall stand up to a
beefsteak?"

"You have to do these things gradually." I opened one of the slatted
shutters, closed against the late afternoon sun. "Probably the waiter
will just introduce you at first, like Alice--Louise, biftek; biftek,
Louise. Then you both bow, and the steak is ushered out."

"And of course, in France, no pudding to follow." Louise sighed. "Well,
we'll have to make do. Aren't you letting the mosquitoes in, opening
that shutter?"

"It's too early. And I can't see to hang these things away. Do you mind
either smoking that cigarette or putting it out? It smells."

"Sorry." She picked it up again from the ash-tray. "I'm too lazy even to
smoke. I warn you, you know, I'm not going sightseeing. I couldn't care
less if Julius Caesar used to fling his auxiliaries round the town, and
throw moles across the harbour mouth. If you want to go and gasp at
Roman remains you'll have to go alone. I shall sit under a tree, with a
book, as near to the hotel as possible."

I laughed, and began putting out my creams and sunburn lotions on what
the Hotel Tistet-Vedene fondly imagined to be a dressing-table.

"Of course I don't expect you to come. You'll do as you like. But I
believe the Pont du Card -"

"My dear, I've seen the Holborn Viaduct. Life can hold no more. ..."

Louise stubbed out her cigarette carefully, and then folded her hands
behind her head. She is tall and fair and plump, with long legs, a
pleasant voice, and beautiful hands. She is an artist, has no
temperament to speak of, and is unutterably and incurably lazy. When
accused of this, she merely says that she is
MADAM, WILL YOU TALK? 7


seeing life steadily and seeing it whole, and this takes time. You can
neither ruffle nor surprise Louise; you can certainly never quarrel with
her. If trouble should ever arise, Louise is simply not there; she fades