“You see, madame, that I am a very stupid man,” he said during the dance in the last act of “Guillaume Tell.” “Am I not right to keep, as the saying is, to my own specialty?”
“In truth, my dear captain, you are neither a talker nor a man of the world, but you are perhaps Polish.”
“Therefore leave me to look after your pleasures, your property, your household—it is all I am good for.”
“Tartufe! pooh!” cried Adam, laughing. “My dear, he is full of ardor; he is thoroughly educated; he can, if he chooses, hold his own in any salon. Clementine, don’t believe his modesty.”
“Adieu, comtesse; I have obeyed your wishes so far; and now I will take the carriage and go home to bed and send it back for you.”
Clementine bowed her head and let him go without replying.
“What a bear!” she said to the count. “You are a great deal nicer.”
Adam pressed her hand when no one was looking.
“Poor, dear Thaddeus,” he said, “he is trying to make himself disagreeable where most men would try to seem more amiable than I.”
“Oh!” she said, “I am not sure but what there is some calculation in his behavior; he would have taken in an ordinary woman.”