Mademoiselle pouted.
“I do not act so badly, nevertheless,” she said, “when I may have an appreciative audience.”
“And I, at least, am that.”
She shrugged her shoulders, yawned a tiny yawn.
“Well,” she said, “I must not keep monsieur from his business; and monsieur the doctor shall not persuade me to cure too much cake with more.”
She rose, smoothing her rumpled plumes. Ned smiled.
“I will not, since you bid me, take it to heart,” he said. “Had you found me as heavy as you say, you would not last night have voluntarily elected to bear so much of the weight of my company.”
“I sacrificed myself, monsieur, according to my principles, to the good of the community.”
“Pamela,” cried my lord, suddenly pained, “my business is to go on a journey only for the reason that I may serve you!”
She would have resented, without any real feeling of resentment, his familiar use of her name, had not his tone found the sympathetic chord in her that his words could not reach.