"I am as serious," he replied, "as a dancing dervish."
And then, for I suppose I looked incredulous, he went on to justify himself.
"She's very good," he said, "and very pretty. Quite a Madonna face, to my thinking."
"You may see a dozen such Madonna faces among the nurses in the Luxembourg Gardens, every afternoon of your life," said I.
"Oh, if you come to that, every woman is like every other woman, up to a certain point."
"Les femmes se suivent et se ressemblent toujours," said I, parodying a well-known apothegm.
"Precisely, but then they wear their rue, or cause you to wear yours, 'with a difference.' This girl, however, escapes the monotony of her sex by one or two peculiarities:--she has not a bit of art about her, nor a shred of coquetry. She is as simple and as straightforward as an Arcadian. She doesn't even know when she is being made love to, or understand what you mean, when you pay her a compliment."
"Then she's a phenomenon--and what man in his senses would fall in love with a phenomenon?"
"Every man, mon cher enfant, who falls in love at all! The woman we worship is always a phenomenon, whether of beauty, or grace, or virtue--till we find her out; and then, probably, she becomes a phenomenon of deceit, or slovenliness, or bad temper! And now, to return to the point we started from--will you go with me to Madame Marotte's tea-party to-morrow evening at eight? Don't say 'No,' there's a good fellow."
"I'll certainly not say No, if you particularly want me to say Yes," I replied, "but--"