"Woman's beauty, Master Lamont."
"Have I not eyes in my head and blood in my veins?" asked Pierre Lamont. "It warms me like wine to know that I and the loveliest woman for a hundred miles round are caged within the same roof."
Fritz indulged in another fit of laughter, and then exclaimed:
"She has caught you too, eh? Now, who would have thought it? Two of the cleverest lawyers in the world fixed with one arrow! Beauty is a divine gift, Master Lamont. To possess it is almost as good as being born a fool."
"I shall lie awake and read love-verses. Listen to Zappi, fool."
And in a voice really tender, Pierre Lamont read from the book:
"A hundred pretty little loves, in fun, Were romping; laughing, rioting one day."
"A hundred!" cried Fritz, chuckling and rubbing his hands. "A hundred--pretty--little loves! If Father Capel were to hear you, his face would grow as long as my arm.
"Wrong, Fritz, wrong. His face would beam, and he would listen for the continuation of the poem."
And Pierre Lamont resumed: