“Ah ... but that is not the ver’ truth—no. I have seen. I do not know—maybe you theenk you do not love him, but you do love him. That is why I am willing to speak weeth you.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I am willing to speak weeth you about Monsieur Ware bicause I love him ver’ much and bicause you also love him. I theenk it mus’ be bicause I know we both wish ver’ much to have him always be happy. Is it not?”
“But I do not love him.”
“Then, mademoiselle, it is not of a necessity for us to speak at all. If you are merely his frien’, his acquaintance, you have no right to speak weeth me about him. It is so. Mais, if you love him”—she lifted her shoulders—“that is ver’ different.”
“He has not asked me to love him.”
“That is well. I theenk he loves me very fidèle. Yes. But also he theenk of you ver’ much. I have seen. You are of his country and are ver’ pretty. He theenk of you and compare you weeth me. I am French.... That is not American. He theenk about w’en he goes back to America, and then bicause I am ver’ French and not American he is troubled. He theenk I do not onderstan’, but I onderstan’ ver’ well. He say that he love Andree in Paris, and in Paris Andree is ver’ nice, but in America, where all is so different, then he does not know what to theenk.”
“And then?”
“And then he theenk of you, mademoiselle, of you who would not be foreign and strange and at whom his friends would not make to shrug their shoulder’ and lift the eyebrow’—bicause I do not know the manner and the custom.”
“Is that all that troubles you—not knowing the manners and the customs?”