“Very well, sir.”
“Ver-r-ee vell, seer,” he tried to repeat.
“Very well, not ‘very vell,’ and you don’t say ‘seer,’ you say ‘sir.’”
“‘Bien.’ I say ‘Ver-ree ou-ell, sur.’ Correct, no?”
“Much better, very much better. Monsieur, I want you to tell me something. How do people act when they are in love?”
“Mon Dieu! She wishes to conjugate the verb amo. It is so long, mademoiselle, since I played the young lover I should scarcely know. I love; you love; he loves; that is how it goes. But why do you ask? Are you perhaps falling in love, with the doctor is it? There is no one else but Gaspard, and Gaspard—”
“Exactly; it is Gaspard whom I mean.”
“But, my child—” The old man became so agitated that he dropped his stick, which Lucie hastened to pick up. “Gaspard—your parents; you are so young, moreover Gaspard—” He paused helplessly.
Lucie burst into a peal of laughter. “You didn’t suppose I was talking about Gaspard and myself?” She laughed again.
He shrugged his shoulders. “They are impossible, these females. One cannot tell what they mean. You ask me about love. You mention Gaspard. What am I to think?”