She replied with perfect ease: "Quite well; and you, Pretty-boy?" and turning to Madeleine, added: "You will allow me to call him Pretty-boy still?"
"Certainly, dear; I will allow whatever you please."
A shade of irony seemed hidden in these words.
Madame Walter spoke of an entertainment that was going to be given by Jacques Rival at his residence, a grand assault-at-arms, at which ladies of fashion were to be present, saying: "It will be very interesting. But I am so vexed we have no one to take us there, my husband being obliged to be away at that time."
Du Roy at once offered his services. She accepted, saying: "My daughters and I will be very much obliged to you."
He looked at the younger daughter, and thought: "She is not at all bad looking, this little Susan; not at all." She resembled a fair, fragile doll, too short but slender, with a small waist and fairly developed hips and bust, a face like a miniature, grayish-blue, enamel-like eyes, which seemed shaded by a careful yet fanciful painter, a polished, colorless skin, too white and too smooth, and fluffy, curly hair, in a charming aureola, like, indeed the hair of the pretty and expensive dolls we see in the arms of children much smaller than their plaything.
The elder sister, Rose, was ugly, dull-looking, and insignificant; one of those girls whom you do not notice, do not speak to, and do not talk about.
The mother rose, and, turning to George, said:
"Then I may reckon upon you for next Thursday, two o'clock?"
"You may reckon upon me, madame," he replied.