“Are you sure you know what love is, Mademoiselle?” and seeing the color spread in a crimson wave over her face he cried, “Some one has stolen you away from me! Tell me, is it not true?”
“What right have you to ask questions?” she demanded, angered by his assumption of authority. And then more quietly, “We must not quarrel, Monsieur, we have been altogether too good friends for that. I want to tell you that we are interested in your explorations and how proud we are to know that so many of your plans have been accomplished.”
“It is nothing to me now.”
“Fie, Monsieur! Are you going to cry baby because you can’t have the world all your way?”
“You are all my world.”
Julie had heard this from other men under similar conditions, and though she believed his disappointment to be genuinely bitter she knew that life could still hold out some hope even in the face of unrequited love. But how make him see it her way? In a moment she said:
“I am only a girl, Monsieur Grémond, but I think you want me to respect you, don’t you, and I certainly shall not be apt to if you are going to be vanquished right before my very eyes.”
“What a strange girl you are, Mademoiselle,” he said, roused to a critical survey of her. “Most girls like their lovers to be inconsolable, but you threaten me with everlasting disgrace for refusing to be consoled. I don’t understand it.”
“No, you would not understand me, ever,” said Julie cheerfully, glad to have roused him at last. “You must go back to France and marry some nice sweet little thing who will perfectly adore you and you’ll be ‘happy ever after,’ as the story books say.”
“I wish you would not dispose of me in such an off-hand fashion,” aggrievedly. “I am tempted to kidnap you and carry you off this moment to the steamer. She sails in the morning. Oh! couldn’t you do it, ma petite?”