I had forgotten the King now; a flood of bashfulness overwhelmed me, and, as I stood there holding my képi in one hand, I, mesmerised by the figure in pantalettes before me, made a stiff little bow. Dropping Bismarck's hand, she made a little curtsey, and came skipping to me across the shining floor.
"And you, too, are a soldier?" said she, speaking in French. "Bon jour, M. l'Officier!"
"Bon jour, mademoiselle!"
"My name is Eloise," said the apparition of light. "Do you like my dress?"
"Oui, mademoiselle!"
She pursed her lips. "Oui, mademoiselle? Oh, how dull you are! Now, if I wert thou, and thou wert I, know you what I would have said?"
"Non, mademoiselle."
"Non, mademoiselle! Oh, how droll you are. I would have said: 'Mademoiselle, your toilet is ravishing!' Now say it."
"Mademoiselle, your toilet is ravishing."
She laughed with pleasure at having made me repeat the words. Despite her conversation, she had no touch of the old-fashioned, or the pert, or the objectionable about her. Brimming over with life, pure from its source, fresh as a daisy, sparkling as a dewdrop, sweetness was written upon her brow, across that ineffable mark of purity with which God stamps His future angels.