The Madonna of the Sleeping Cars Read Online Free Page A

those insufferable Frenchmen who are always running around a woman’s skirts like a hunting-dog chasing a pheasant. I warn you undue familiarity always breeds contempt. I am a woman to whom you’ll be rather more a companion than a secretary, or, I might say,you’ll have to play the part of a husband—up to the point of coming into my bedroom. You understand that! You’re going to take care of my interests. You’re going to give me a lot of useful advice. You’re going to prevent me from doing stupid things whenever possible, because they tell me that that is the favorite pastime of women of my class. Lastly, I hope you won’t hesitate to throw out any questionable admirers, who may try to profit by my feminine caprices.”
    Lady Diana stopped to arrange a rebellious eyelash with her rose-tipped fingers and carried on:
    “You’ll have to travel with me should the necessity arise. I am sure that you’ve heard all about the thousands and thousands of miles which I have covered on Continental railroads. A French humorist had the audacity to call me the Madonna of the Sleeping Cars. To call me a madonna of any sort is a consummate bit of irony because, although I may look like one, I have none of the other attributes. As a matter of fact, I have been in every European watering-place; I’ve lost more billets-doux than you could shake a stick at, between the pages of timetables and illustrated magazines; there is not a customs officer in any country who doesn’t recognize the perfume of my valises, and who doesn’t know the most sacred details of my lingerie. They say that to go away is to die a little, but it’s my theory that to die would be to go too far and that to travel is simplyto change one’s ideas. I count on you to amuse me whenever the telegraph poles are too far apart—to give light to the solemnity of long tunnels—to put a little spice into the faded menus of dining-cars and to chase the flies out of the hotel lobbies wherever we may happen to be.”
    Lady Diana gave me no time to answer. She added, “Of course it’s impossible to pay you what you’re really worth. You have a perfectly lovely title and my fortune would neversuffice, but I offer you five hundred pounds a month just for your cigars, your gardenias, and your silk socks. Will you accept that?”
    This declaration, issuing from the lips of such a famous beauty, amused and at the same time disconcerted me. I bowed. “I accept, Lady Diana, except for the five hundred pounds. I don’t rent my services, I give them. I will be your secretary—how shall I say?—for the love of Art, if you like, and possibly because I don’t know what to do with myself and because I’m bored.”
    My reply must have astonished Lady Wynham for she lowered her brows. “I would have preferred not to be under obligations to you. I have never considered it very nice to accept things without giving something in exchange.”
    “My dear lady, your sympathy and your kindness will be ample recompense for me.”
    Lady Wynham hesitated before she replied, “All right. A week from today you will probably have earned one and conquered the other.”
    Then she added, “For the sake of good form, my dear Prince, would you mind showing me your papers? To be frank about it, one can be a prince and still be a burglar. I like to know, once and for all, where I stand in regard to my associates.”
    I satisfied her curiosity. She handed back my papers exactly the way a guardian of the law returns an automobile license to a motorist who has been speeding, and, slipping her arm familiarly through mine, she suggested that we take a look around her house.
    Her room was not devoid of originality. It consisted of a very large, low bed, spread with baby blue, and watched over by two electric lights, which went out when her little thumbtouched the magic button. A tremendous white bearskin—imported from Greenland—faithfully awaited her small pink feet. The petals of a dozen