"'Sas, son, bileton,
My grand'methe a-fishing has gone:
She'll gather the fins to scrape my jowl,
And ride back home on a barnyard fowl!'
"Nannin, ma'm'selle, 'tis plain to be seen you can't guess what a cornfield grows besides red poppies." Laughing in sheer delight at the mystery she was making, she broke off again into a whimsical nursery rhyme:
"'Coquelicot, j'ai mal au de
Coquelicot, qu'est qui l'a fait?
Coquelicot, ch'tai mon valet.'"
She kicked off the red slipper again. Flying half-way across the room, it alighted on the table, and a little mud from the heel dropped on the clean scoured surface. With a little moue of mockery, she got slowly up and tiptoed across the floor, like a child afraid of being scolded. Gathering the dust carefully, and looking demurely askance at Guida the while, she tiptoed over again to the fireplace and threw it into the chimney.
"Naughty Carterette," she said at herself with admiring reproach, as she looked in Guida's mirror, and added, glancing with farcical approval round the room, "and it all shines like peacock's feather, too!"
Guida longed to snatch the letter from Carterette's hand and read it, but she only said calmly, though the words fluttered in her throat:
"You're as gay as a chaffinch, Garcon Carterette." Garcon Carterette! Instantly Carterette sobered down. No one save Ranulph ever called her Garcon Carterette. Guida used Ranulph's name for Carterette, knowing that it would change the madcap's mood. Carterette, to hide a sudden flush, stooped and slowly put on her slipper. Then she came back to the veille, and sat down again beside Guida, saying as she did so:
"Yes, I'm gay as a chaffinch—me."
She unfolded the letter slowly, and Guida stopped sewing, but mechanically began to prick the linen lying on her knee with the point of the needle.
"Well," said Carterette deliberately, "this letter's from a pend'loque of a fellow—at least, we used to call him that—though if you come to think, he was always polite as mended porringer. Often he hadn't two sous to rub against each other. And—and not enough buttons for his clothes."