His admiration, as outwardly it appeared to be, for Madame Ducret, was
evident to the others, but her husband accepted it. It was her due. And,
on the Congo, to grudge to another man the sight of a pretty woman was
as cruel as to withhold the few grains of quinine that might save his
reason. But before the day passed, Madame Ducret was aware that the
American could not be lightly dismissed as an admirer. The fact neither
flattered nor offended. For her it was no novel or disturbing
experience. Other men, whipped on by loneliness, by fever, by primitive
savage instincts, had told her what she meant to them. She did not hold
them responsible. Some, worth curing, she had nursed through the
illness. Others, who refused to be cured, she had turned over, with a
shrug, to her husband. This one was more difficult. Of men of Everett's
traditions and education she had known but few; but she recognized the
type. This young man was no failure in life, no derelict, no outcast
flying the law, or a scandal, to hide in the jungle. He was what, in her
Maxim days, she had laughed at as an aristocrat. He knew her Paris as
she did not know it: its history, its art.
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