The Madonna of the Sleeping Cars Read Online Free

Four Greek goddesses made a futile attempt to hide their ancient shame in the depths of rose and gray marble niches.
    I waited a few minutes in a boudoir which was saturated with chypre and Turkish tobacco. Then Lady Diana Wynham appeared. Her extremely blond hair made a fascinating contrast to a gold and purple tea-gown beneath which one could see a frail veil of white silk against her skin.
    This heavy material seemed to press dangerously against her delicate form. Her arms were bare; her feet were encased in Moroccan leather. Her complexion was without a blemish. She offered me a tiny nervous hand which extended from awrist chained by a platinum wire with a large diamond sparkling in the center.
    I was about to embark on the usual banalities of an attorney beguiling a prospective client, when Lady Diana cut me short:
    “And so it’s all off with Griselda?”
    My astonishment seemed to amuse her. She went on, waving me into an armchair: “Look here, my dear Prince, you don’t suppose, do you, that the London gentry is in ignorance of your adventures in New York? Your escapade at Palm Beach was followed in every exclusive drawing-room. They were even giving three to one that the Princess would divorce you immediately. The world is small. And I can’t help telling you that I am delighted to see that my little advertisement brought to me the sentimental lesser half of the beautiful Mrs. Griselda Turner.”
    My hostess offered me a cunning scarlet trunk, full of cigarettes. “So, it’s all off?”
    “Yes, and no, Lady Diana. I am a King Lear, wandering aimlessly about, far away from the kingdom from which the Princess has exiled me.”
    “Is the divorce well under way?”
    “That’s not the point. I must tell you that I still love Griselda, but that all my letters are returned unopened. Therefore, a husband, resigned to an inflexible wife, I live from day to day, watching the clouds drift by. Your little announcement, Lady Wynham, tempted me. I answered it, not so much because I needed money as to find something to do, and I wouldn’t mind if you would outline precisely just what my obligations will be; always provided, of course, that I am fortunate enough to enter your employ.”
    “You speak well, my dear Prince. But, after all, Frenchmenare a trifle wordy. You ask me what I expect of my secretary? Everything and nothing. I didn’t advertise with the idea of trying to get myself a lover. You may be sure of that. I don’t need the
Times
when I want to float about in the astral plane. I am a widow. Undoubtedly you know that my husband, Lord Wynham, like Wenceslaus, died from over-eating and drinking. That’s a prosaic but a rapid finish. He left me this house, three automobiles, a yacht which is gradually sinking from lack of repair, a beautiful collection of erotic photographs and the Bible which was read by Anne Boleyn; a Box in Covent Garden, a healthy boy, who is a caddie at a Golf Club in Brighton, and fifty pounds a year which I have to dole out quarterly to a little maid in a hotel at Dinard. All that is very complicated.If I add that my banker cheats me, that each year I have seven hundred and thirty invitations to dinner, all of which I couldn’t accept unless I cut myself in half at eight o’clock every evening; if I go on to say that I have, on the average, six admirers a year, without counting casual acquaintances and some exploded gasoline which sticks to the carburetor; that I keep an exact account of my poker debts, that I always help every charitable undertaking, that I am the honorary captain of a squad of police women and I was a candidate in the elections for North Croydon; if I finally admit that I have a very poor memory, that I love champagne and that I have never known how to add, then, perhaps, you will be able to understand why I need a private secretary. As far as you are concerned I may as well tell you that I like you; I know you both by name and reputation. You’re not one of