De Maurel frowned and that old look of churlish obstinacy once more crept into his face.
"I don't understand what you mean," he said.
"Yet 'tis simple enough, my good de Maurel," interposed M. de Courson in his turn. "There are certain usages of good society which forbid a young girl to go about alone in the company of a man other than her father or her brother."
"Surely you knew that?" queried Laurent ironically.
"No, I did not," replied de Maurel curtly. "Why should not Mademoiselle Fernande come with me to visit my foundries, if she desires to see them?"
"Because ... because ..." said Madame somewhat haltingly, obviously at a loss how to explain to this unsophisticated rustic the manners and usages of good society.
"I would see that she came to no harm."
"I am sure of that, mon cousin," quoth Fernande with a little sigh and a glance of complete understanding directed at de Maurel. "I should feel perfectly safe in your company."
"Fernande!" exclaimed Laurent hotly.
"There, you see?" she said, with a shrug of her pretty shoulders. "La jeune fille is a regular slave to a multiplicity of senseless conventions. Do not argue about it, mon cousin, it is quite useless. Ma tante will hurl the proprieties at your head till she has made you feel that you are a dangerous Don Juan, and unfit to be left alone in the company of an innocent young girl like me."