The Count remained silent for several minutes, his eyes obstinately fixed on the portrait. "You have there a beautiful mistress, Viscount," he said at length, in a voice as calm as the aftermath of a hobbite souper. "And her costume - a costume for la brequedanse, sans doute - suits her ravishingly."
"Ah! Monsieur," said Réginard. "Voilà an error I would not forgive, if beside this portrait you had seen a few others, such as the Lobélie de Lothotrec - not though the marring of Arda were amended by a conversion of the Valards to le bon goût. You do not know my mother, monsieur; it is she whom you see in that painting. The Countess had herself painted in a fancy dress some years ago, during an absence of the Count de Pérégrin. Doubtless she thought he would be content; but, chose bizarre, it greatly displeased my father, and the quality of the painting (one of Léopold Proudefont's most beautiful paintings, worthy of the lost gallery of Luthiennes painted in Ménégrot by the sieur de Daerond, that were taken beyond the sea to Valinor, that Tolcas might gaze upon her loveliness) did nothing to assuage the antipathy in which he held it. 'Gamgès, nous le détestons, nous le détestons pour toujours!' he would growl whenever he saw it. Between ourselves, my dear Count, it is true that M. de Pérégrin is one of the most assiduous peers at the Dragon jaune, a general renowned for his knowledge of strategy, particularly regarding the manoeuvre golf-ball, but one of the most mediocre connoisseurs of art in all Arnor; it is not the same for my mother, who paints à merveilles - her ships, in particular, are considered the best in any gallery in Annuminas. And the gulls! Esteeming the picture too much to rid herself of it altogether, she destined it to my quarters, in order less to displease M. de Pérégrin.
