“Voici le sabre de mon Pere.”
“You deny, then?” Madame was fast losing patience, a grave mistake when one is dealing with a banterer.
Maurice changed the tune:
“J'aime les militaires, Leur uniforme coquet, Leur moustache et leur plumet—”
“Answer!” with a stamp of the foot.
“Je sais ce que je voudrais, Je voudrais etre cantiniere!”...
“Monsieur,” said the pretty countess, after a furtive glance at Madame's stormy eyes, “do you deny?”
The whistle ceased. “Madame, to you I shall say that I neither deny nor affirm. The affair is altogether too ridiculous to treat seriously. I have nothing to say.” The whistle picked up the thread again.
Doubt began to stir in the eyes of the Englishman. He looked at Madame with a kind of indecision, to find that she was glancing covertly at him. His gaze finally rested on Maurice, who had crossed his legs and was keeping time to the music with his foot. Indeed, these were not the violent protestations of innocence he had looked for. This demeanor was not at all in accord with his expectations. Now that he had possessed Madame's lips (though she might never possess the consols), Maurice did not appear so guilty.
“Carewe,” he said, “you have deceived me from the start.”