"Let me hear your French accent."
I let her hear it.
"H'm! It seems well enough. Paris?"
"Paris, madame."
"Don't call me 'madame.' Any common person is madame. You should say 'your ladyship'."
I said it.
"And I want you should speak to me in the third person, like the French servants are supposed to do in good houses."
"If mad—if your ladyship wishes."
(Thank heaven for a sense of humour! My one wild desire was to laugh. Without that blessing, I should have yearned to slap her.)
"What references have you got from your last situation?"