“Well,” said Driscoll, “don’t do it again.”
“Not unless,” ventured Boone, “not unless she should ever want a little antidote for ennui. By the way, mademoiselle, do you thank me for the quaver of emotion, for the frisson?”
“Frisson?” she repeated scornfully, with loathing. For once she had been unaware of the prized knife-like tremor. In the fear of losing one dear she had lost consciousness of self. She had lived the tremor, the agony, and it was too dreadful, “No, monsieur,” she said, “I want no more of art. I–I want to live!”
“You needed something, though,” said Berthe, “to make you find it out.”
Driscoll looked curiously at the two girls.
“Yes, J-Jack’leen”–how quaintly awkward he was, trying her old tomboy nickname without the “Miss!”–“Yes, what was the matter with you, anyhow?”
“Parbleu, I forgot!” cried Jacqueline in dismay. “I was not to have monsieur, no!” And Jacqueline’s chin, tilting back with elaborate hauteur, was meant to indicate that she was in her first mind about it.
Berthe laughed outright, and softly clapped her hands.
“Sho’,” declared Mr. Boone, “the matter was nothing, nothing at all!”
519But before feminine caprices and scruples it is wiser to bow low into the dust. Jacqueline turned on the editorial personage with vast indignation. “You leave the room, Seigneur Troubadour,” she commanded, “and Berthe, you march with him. Haste, both of you!”