‘No,’ said Paul, calling his stage practice to his aid, and following her lead,’ it is not worth while; but,’ he added with a ceremonious bow, ‘I shall not break my heart if I must needs go on with Madame la Baronne. The right which you have given me to use a dearer name is so precious to me ‘—he drew out his watch and pretended to compare it with the fairy pendule on the mantel-shelf—‘is so precious,’ he continued, ‘that I cannot resign it, and if I am absolutely driven to it in self-defence, I shall have to invent a dearer name.’
‘Now, that, M. Paul,’ said Madame, with her tone and face of chill sweetness, ‘is excellently well done, except for the one little circumstance that you do not disguise your ardour. I read in your eyes,’ she said as calmly as if she were announcing a trifle of news she had read in the morning’s papers, ‘all the fervour of your mind, and I do not wish to read it there—that is to say, I do not wish my little maid to read it there.’
‘Well,’ said Paul, ‘I will try. If you will let me say what I want to say, I will keep a straight face over it.’
‘Within measure,’ said the lady, with a passing touch of gaiety—‘within measure.’
‘Most things have their measure,’ Paul answered, ‘until you come to the crucial matters of the heart, and they go beyond measure.’
The maid broke in at this point to ask if Madame la Baronne would be served.
‘At once,’ said the mistress, and waved Paul to his place. He bowed and took it. The maid served a number of elegant kickshaws, and the grave serving-man who had superintended the dinner-table on the previous evening entered with a bottle of hock in a cradle and stealthily withdrew.
‘You gave me but little time,’ said Gertrude, ‘to prepare for you, but I think you will find that we have done very well. Try that hock, M. Paul.’
Paul looked down his nose, and in a dry-at-dust voice recited the first verse of old Ben’s immortal lyric. His voice quavered a little on the last lines—
‘But might I of Jove’s nectar sip, I would not change from thine!’ and Gertrude broke in with a laugh and an airy little wave of her hand.