“O no, not mine,” answered Rosalie gayly. “Indeed I am dreadfully afraid that this foreign music may not be understood by the Parisians. We ought to have brought the atmosphere of Provence, the costumes, the farandole—but first of all,” she added seriously, “it is necessary that you must keep your promise.”
“Promise, promise? It will be impossible to talk at all very soon!”
Turning towards his secretary, who was smiling, he added:
“By Jove, all Southerners are not like you, Méjean, cold and calculating and taciturn. You are a false one, a renegade Southerner, a Franciot, as they say with us. A Southerner?—you? A man who has never lied and who does not like vervain tea!” he added with a comically indignant tone.
“I am not so franciot as I seem, sir,” answered Méjean calmly. “When I first came to Paris twenty years ago I was a terrible Southerner—impudence, gesticulations, assurance—as talkative and inventive as—”
“As Bompard,” prompted Roumestan, who never liked other people to ridicule his dearest friend, but did not deny himself the privilege.
“Yes, really, almost as bad as Bompard. A kind of instinct urged me never to tell the truth. One day I began to feel ashamed of this and resolved to correct it. Outward exaggeration could be mastered at least by speaking in a low voice and keeping my arms pressed tightly against my sides; but the inward—the boiling, bubbling torrent—that was more difficult. Then I made an heroic resolution. Every time I caught myself in an untruth I punished myself by not speaking for the rest of the day; that is how I was able to reform my nature. Nevertheless the instinct is there under all my coolness. Sometimes I have broken off short in the middle of a sentence—it isn’t the words I lack, quite the contrary—I hold myself in check because I feel that I am going to lie.”
“The terrible South—there is no way of escaping from it!” said the genial Numa, philosophically, blowing a cloud of smoke from his cigar up to the ceiling. “The South holds me through the mania I have to make promises, that craziness of throwing myself at people’s heads and insisting on their happiness whether they want it or not—”
A footman interrupted him, opened the door and announced with a knowing and confidential air:
“M. Béchut is here.”