Then he laughed out aloud, the first time I had ever heard him laugh so.
"Forgive me," he said. "I am not, indeed, laughing at you. I am amused at no thing or person: it is the imbroglio. What you have told me is interesting, and I take it as a profound secret. Say nothing of it to anyone; for if it were known——"
"Yes?"
"Why, the whole of Paris would be laughing!"
I arose, very much affronted and huffed. And I was a fool, for what my guardian said was perfectly correct. The situation to a French mind was as amusing as a Palais Royal farce. But I knew little of the world, and, as I say, I arose very much affronted and huffed.
"Good-night, sir."
My guardian rose up and bowed kindly and courteously, but with the faintest film of ice veiling his manner.
"Good-night."