'We will challenge Madame Fortune again in the morning, mademoiselle. You and I will beat her this time. We will co-operate again.'
'Oh yes,' she said, 'do let me take it in the morning. I will be careful.'
'And now,' I said, 'you will think me an ogre, and will fancy that I am going to imprison you unless I let you go.'
I opened the door, but she lingered, struggling with that embarrassment which feared to embarrass me. For she is a lady just as certainly as I am a gentleman, and fine natures understand each other. I could see her make up her mind, and I resolved therefore not to be embarrassed.
'But, signor,' she said, with more firmness than I had expected, 'the tobacco and the coffee and the loaf?'
'Mademoiselle,' I said, 'the coffee and the tobacco and the loaf loom dimly from the future. They will come in good time.'
But, oh, the little girl was brave and tender-hearted and honourable. She was a little Englishwoman, with beliefs in duty. And yet she would sooner have faced ten lions than me, with my Italian courtesy and my uncomplaining good temper.
'Mrs. Hopkins,' she said, 'will lend me a—a shilling, and I——'
From that moment I respected her.
'Mademoiselle,' I answered, 'you are a lady, I am a gentleman. We have both the misfortune to be poor. We have both the admirable good fortune to be proud and honourable. You are brave and good, and your instincts are delicate. You will permit me to ask you not to humiliate yourself.'