“Oh, no, you wouldn’t, Wynnette. And you must not, for all the world, put such a thing in poor Le’s head. He will be in trouble enough when he comes home, poor fellow, to find his sweetheart taken away from him without having—oh! I can’t speak the dreadful word, Wynnette. Poor Le! I tell you what I’ll do, Wynnette.”
“What?”
“Well, if the worst comes to the worst, and that colonel does take Odalite away from Le——”
“Of course he will take Odalite away from Le. There is not a doubt of it. I shall have the pleasure of speaking my mind to the scalawag—I mean the wretch—but that is all I shall get; and he, he will feel ashamed of himself, perhaps, and that is all he will do. He is not a man to give up anything he wants; and he wants Odalite, and he means to have her—the brute!”
“Well, if it comes to that, I tell you what I will do. I will marry poor dear Le myself—that is, when I am big enough. I always did like Le.”
“You! You marry Le!” exclaimed Wynnette, opening her black eyes to their widest capacity.
“Yes, when I am big enough—that is, I mean, unless you would take him. That would be ever so much better.”
“I! Why, I wouldn’t have Le Force if every hair on his head was hung with a diamond as big as a hazel nut, and he would give them all to me. No, I thank you.”
“Well, then, I would. So there now! Not only if he hadn’t a diamond to his name, but if he hadn’t a hair on his head. Poor Le! Poor dear Le! I do love him so dearly!”
Wynnette had made no vain boast of “bearding the lion.” She watched her opportunity, and on the very first occasion on which she found him alone, sitting and reading in the drawing room, she—to use her own expression—“went for him.”