"Truly, she is more bewitching than when I first knew her," he muttered between his close teeth, as if he admired with awe and suppressed breath. "What a pretty monster she is!"
Feeling that his view was weighing upon her, Madame Clemenceau suddenly looked up. It seemed to her that something in the altered and insolent bearing was not unknown to her but the recollection was hazy, and the black whiskers perplexed.
"Did you speak, monsieur?" she said, to give herself countenance.
"I spoke nothing," he replied still in the smooth accent which was not familiar to her. "A man of business like myself, feels bound, if he has any natural turning that way, to become a physiognomist and thought-reader in order not to pay too dearly for bargains; I am happy to say that I rarely blunder."
"Then you can read my disposition?" exclaimed Césarine mockingly.
"I knew it before."
"Indeed! then you would do me a great service, monsieur, if you would tell me how it strikes you, as an average man. For I assure you," she went on, taking a seat without pointing out one to him, "that some days I do not understand myself, a most humiliating thing, though ancient wisdom acknowledged that the hardest thing is self-knowledge."
"If you authorize me to be outspoken, madame, I will enlighten you," returned Cantagnac.
"Do not let me be in your way!" impertinently.
"It is the most simple thing, for your entire character is described in these four words: venal, ferocious, frivolous and insubmissive!"