"I would not have bought it, Mademoiselle, if I had known that I should disappoint a--a lady by doing so,"
I was on the point of saying, "if I had known that I should disappoint you by so doing," but hesitated, and checked myself in time.
A half-mocking smile flitted across her lips.
"Monsieur is too self-sacrificing," she said. "Had I first bought the book, I should have kept it--being a woman. Reverse the case as you will, and show me any just reason why you should not do the same--being a man?"
"Nay, the merest by-law of courtesy..." I began, hesitatingly.
"Do not think me ungracious, Monsieur," she interrupted, "if I hold that these so-called laws of courtesy are in truth but concessions, for the most part, from the strength of your sex to the weakness of ours."
"Eh bien, Mademoiselle--what then?"
"Then, Monsieur, may there not be some women---myself, for instance--who do not care to be treated like children?"
"Pardon, Mademoiselle, but are you stating the case quite fairly? Is it not rather that we desire not to efface the last lingering tradition of the age of chivalry--not to reduce to prose the last faint echoes of that poetry which tempered the sword of the Crusader and inspired the song of the Trouvère?"
"Were it not better that the new age created a new code and a new poetry?" said Mademoiselle Dufresnoy.