“Did ever anybody see the like?” cried she, with an impatient stamp of her little foot. “Do you hear what I say to you, Luquin?”
“No,” said the captain, coming out of his reflective mood; “all that I know is that from Nice to Bayonne, from Bayonne to Calais, from Calais to Hambourg, from Hambourg to—”
“Have you finished your European trip, Luquin?”
“Indeed, from one pole to the other there is not a prettier girl than you, Stephanette.”
“What! Did you make such an extensive voyage to arrive at that discovery, captain? I pity the privateers of the Holy Terror to the Moors, by the Grace of God, if the voyages of this poor old polacre have no better results!”
“Do not speak ill of my polacre, Stephanette; you will be glad to see its blue and white pavilion when I return from Nice, and how you will watch for my coming from the turret of Maison-Forte!”
Luquin’s conceitedness disgusted Stephanette; she replied, with an ironical air:
“Well, well! I see that a watchman on the cape of L’Aigle is altogether unnecessary. All the young girls who wait impatiently for the return of Captain Trinque-taille, and all the jealous ones who watch his departure with their eyes fixed on the sea, will be sufficient to discover the pirates. There is nothing more to fear from corsairs.”
Luquin took on an air of modest triumph, and said:
“By St. Stephen, my patron, I am too sure of your love, and too happy in it, Stephanette, to care if I am expected or regretted by other girls; and although Rose, the daughter of the haberdasher in La Ciotat,—who resembles the flower whose name she bears,—often tells me—”