"To make the bear dance to my piping," replied Fernande archly.
"That is what I could never allow."
"If ma tante grant me leave," quoth Fernande dryly, "you, my dear cousin, will not be asked to give your consent."
"Fernande!" exclaimed the young man, in a tone of passionate reproach.
"There! there!" she said gently, "do not look so glum. It was you, remember, who talked of sowing seeds of hope in the impressionable field of M. de Maurel's fancy.... Father and tante Denise spoke of the necessity of making friends with that untamed bear, and I...."
"Yes? You, Fernande?" queried Laurent, his glowering eyes fixed moodily upon the exquisite face that smiled so tantalizingly upon him.
"I," she said lightly, "have no other wish save to bring back that same untamed bear to heel, and to make him pay his respects to ma tante; to bring him back to Courson, not once but often and willingly, until we are all the best of friends."
Then as her sally was greeted by a shrug of the shoulders from her father, a sigh of despondency from her aunt and a further scowl from Laurent, she continued more earnestly:
"Surely, if M. de Maurel's friendship is so important to the interests of His Majesty as ma tante and father think, it is worth while making an effort to gain it. No harm can come in trying. If I fail we shall be no worse off than we are now."