She put up her face quite close to his, and said mockingly:
“Would you like to kiss me now, monsieur?”
He drew back, with a smiling shake of the head.
“I honour your good fame too well, Fanchette.”
She broke into a shrill little laugh.
“O, the darling, the Joseph! And yet he cannot be happy apart from me. Why, I wonder. He will never say—wherefore it behoves the poor rejected one to give him a morsel of advice.” She came close again, and perked her chin at him. “Do not think for a moment, monsieur, that I want your love; and as for my good fame, it can look after itself. But, for my company, that is another matter from the point of view of your own interests; and, if you follow my advice, you will continue to pretend to take pleasure in it, if you do not feel any.”
“But I do feel pleasure, girl.”
“That is well, then; and I say, let your pleasure be as obvious to others as it is to yourself.”
He looked his bewilderment, and she derided him:
“How slow of comprehension you are! Why, for the reason that they may think this no more than an intrigue with a femme de chambre, and so spare you the gossiping and eavesdropping which might otherwise work you mischief. O, understand me, monsieur! It is friendship which suggests this—not inclination. I do not propose to you to do more than pretend.”