"Oh, what ees eet de weder een one land w'ere de peoples so heavenly keent ees?" he demanded oratorically. "Only eet ees Mees Endeecott do keel me wid her so great cheelleeness."
Miss Endicott looked up from her seat at the tea-table beside which the group stood. Her air was certainly sufficiently cold to excuse the Count for feeling her chilliness; and she answered without a glimmer of a smile.
"I'm not cruel," she said. "I wouldn't hurt a worm."
"But," the Count responded, shaking his head archly, "eet ees dat I be not a worm."
"I thought that all men were worms of the dust," Mrs. Harbinger observed.
The Count bowed his tall figure with finished grace.
"And all de weemens," he declared, "aire angles!"
"It is our sharpness, then, that is to be admired," Alice commented.
"Of course, Alice," Miss Wentstile corrected vixenishly, "the Count means angels."
"So many men," Alice went on without showing other sign of feeling than a slight flush, "have turned a woman from an angel into an angle."