“It cannot help itself, monsieur,” said the girl. “It is all shaped upon signs and hints and glances—upon a mystic code which only the initiated can interpret.”
“Then in that case you are not one of the initiated.”
“I do my best, monsieur. Hey-day! Well, from my own point of view, I am sorry for my mistress—especially as she looks, for her entertainment, to the company this afternoon of so chill a cavalier.”
“What do you mean?”
“O! nothing, but that we are going, she and I, to that old Aquaviva’s garden; and without the she-dragon, who will be engaged over M. du Tillot.”
“Her Highness expects me to accompany her?”
“I did not say that. To think she could so commit herself! But she sighs over the incompleteness of her dear orange-grove, which, says she, only needs its Orpheus to be the sweetest garden under heaven.”
“It is melancholy to have to produce music to order, is it not, Fanchette?”
“I think it is, monsieur.”
“Well, I must respond, I suppose. It will only be a little while longer. It has this use, that you shall convince yourself by my behaviour of the wickedness of your innuendo.”