"Who, my husband?"
"Exactement. Monsieur adores you."
"I wonder?" Peggy said slowly, more to herself than to Pauline.
The maid nodded. "Madame," she went on, "he is a great big dog. You can do anything with him. He will never bite nor snarl, nor show even a little bit of his teeth."
"Perhaps it would be better if he would," Peggy replied in a rather broken voice. "I am so lonely, Pauline. Sometimes I think that his politics don't leave even a little corner for me."
"Bien!" said Pauline with a chuckle. "You would not feel lonely, madame, unless you loved him."
Peggy went up to the piano, which was open, and struck two or three resonant chords. "Certainly there is something in that," she said musingly.
"Yes, madame," Pauline replied, "he is a man, and you are proud of him. He is so different from all the others."
Peggy's idle fingers rattled out a little trilling catch from the Chanson Florian. Suddenly she stopped and turned her head swiftly. "You do not like Mr. Collingwood?" she asked, watching Pauline's face intently.
"Ma Doue!" Pauline answered in her native Breton, "but I like M. Collingwood well enough. All the women that there are like M. Collingwood. He is a terrible flirt, but he is not wicked. But madame must be careful, that is all. He loves madame not as he loves the others."