‘What will she think of you? Oh! that you’re an ill-favoured, tedious little imp.’
‘No, Jacques!’
‘A scurvy, lousy, bombastic——’
‘Oh! Jacques, forbear, for God’s sake!’
‘Provincial——’
‘Oh! Jacques, no more, I’ll scream till you hold your tongue ... what will she think of me, in sober earnest?’
‘She’ll think——’ and he stopped, and looked at her mischievously. Her lips were moving, as if repeating some formulary. ‘That you are ... that there is a “I know not what about you of gallant and witty.”’ Madeleine began to leap up and down the room, then she rushed to Jacques and flung her arms round his neck.
‘I am furiously grateful to you!’ she cried. ‘I felt that had you not said something of good omen ere I had repeated “she’ll think” twenty times, I would never compass my desires, and you said it when I had got to eighteen times!’ Jacques smiled indulgently.
‘So you know the language she affects, do you?’ said Madeleine, with a sort of self-conscious pride.
‘Alas! that I do! I read a few volumes of the Grand Cyrus, and think it the saddest fustian——’