"Mais c'est un petit diable!" cried the astonished lady, fanning herself vigorously with her pocket-handkerchief. She was discomfited though she had won the victory, and hailed the return of her partner with the eau sucrée as a relief. "A thousand thanks, M. Jules! What if we take another turn, though this room really is of insufferable heat."
Madelon was let confronting Horace, a most ill-used little girl, not crying, but with flushed cheeks and pouting lips—a little girl who had lost her game and her bonbons, and felt at war with all the world in consequence. Horace was sorry for her; he, too, thought she had been ill-used, and no sooner was the Countess fairly off than he said, very immorally, no doubt,
"Would you like to have your game back again?"
"No," said Madelon, in whom this speech roused a fresh sense of injury; "I have no more bonbons."
Graham had none to offer her, and a silence ensued, during which she stood leaning against the table, slowly scraping one foot backwards and forwards over the remains of the scattered bonbons. At last he bethought him of a small bunch of charms that he had got somewhere, and hung to his watch-chain, and with which he had often enticed and won the hearts of children.
"Would you like to come and look at these?" he said, holding them up.
"No," she replied, ungraciously, and retreating a step backwards.
"Not at this?" he said. "Here is a little steam engine that runs on wheels; and, see, here is a fan that will open and shut."
"No," she said again, with a determined little shake of her head, and still retreating.
"But only look at this," he said, selecting a little flexible enamel fish, and trying to lure back this small wild bird. "See this little gold and green fish, it moves its head and tail."