‘You’ll have a dreadful rival there, Monsieur O’Leary,’ said she laughingly; ‘he is the most celebrated swordsman and the best shot in Flanders.’
‘It is likely he may rust his weapons if he have no opportunity for their exercise till I give it,’ said I.
‘Don’t you admire her, then?’ said she.
‘The lady is very pretty, indeed,’ said I.
‘The heart led,’ interrupted the abbé suddenly, as he touched my foot beneath the table—‘play a heart.’
Close beside my chair, and leaning over my cards, stood Mademoiselle Laura herself at the moment.
‘You have no heart,’ said she, in English, and with a singular expression on the words, while her downcast eye shot a glance—one glance—through me.
‘Yes, but I have though,’ said I, discovering a card that lay concealed behind another; ‘it only requires a little looking for.’
‘Not worth the trouble, perhaps,’ said she, with a toss of her head, as I threw the deuce upon the table; and before I could reply she was gone.
‘I think her much prettier when she looks saucy,’ said the baronne, as if to imply that the air of pique assumed was a mere piece of acting got up for effect.