Rosamund said: “No – I suppose not. It would be a big risk. One wouldn’t like to take on being Mussolini or Princess Elizabeth. As for one’s friends, one knows too much about them. I remember once meeting a charming husband and wife. They were so courteous and delightful to one another and seemed on such good terms after years of marriage that I envied the woman. I’d have changed places with her willingly. Somebody told me afterwards that in private they’d never spoken to each other for eleven years!” She laughed. “That shows, doesn’t it, that you never know?”
After a moment or two Poirot said:
“Many people. Mademoiselle, must envy you.”
Rosamund Darnley said coolly: “Oh – yes. Naturally.”
She thought about it, her lips curved upward in their ironic smile.
“Yes, I’m really the perfect type of the successful woman! I enjoy the artistic satisfaction of the successful creative artist (I really do like designing clothes) and the financial satisfaction of the successful business woman. I’m very well off, I’ve a good figure, a passable face, and a not too malicious tongue.” She paused. Her smile widened. “Of course – I haven’t got a husband! I’ve failed there, haven’t I, M. Poirot?”
Poirot said gallantly: “Mademoiselle, if you are not married, it is because none of my sex have been sufficiently eloquent. It is from choice, not necessity, that you remain single.”
Rosamund Darnley said: “And yet, like all men, I’m sure you believe in your heart that no woman is content unless she is married and has children.”
Poirot shrugged his shoulders.
“To marry and have children that is the common lot of women. Only one woman in a hundred – more, in a thousand – can make for herself a name and a position as you have done.”
Rosamund grinned at him. “And yet, all the same, I’m nothing but a wretched old maid! That’s what I feel today, at any rate. I’d be happier with a twopence a year and a big silent brute of a husband and a brood of brats running after me. That’s true, isn’t it?”
Poirot shrugged his shoulders. “Since you say so, then, yes, Mademoiselle.”
Rosamund laughed, her equilibrium suddenly restored. She took out a cigarette and lit it. She said:
“You certainly know how to deal with women, M. Poirot. I now feel like taking the opposite point of view and arguing with you in favour of careers for women. Of course I’m damned well off as I am – and I know it!”