Gorgas leaned over eager-eyed to watch the fun, until swiftly it came to her that she and Leopold would be last. Toward Blynn she cast a terrified appeal.
While the first two were blundering joyfully through their minute he slipped around to her and whispered.
“Please carry this out for me! If you say the word, I’ll have them excuse you.... I’ll take all the blame. It’s only fun. Please!”
“All right,” she nodded. But her face, for a humming second, lost some of its ruddy tan.
Their ludicrous book sentences encouraged her, and made her feel suddenly strong and unabashed. Into her mind came pictures of clear, blue-sky days with Bardek gesticulating and spouting his vivid jargon.
Davis was telling about his brother. “I have a little brother. J’ai un petit frère,” he announced with great eagerness, and stopped. Betty had got through by cleverly remembering a conjugation: “I drink, you drink, he drinks, she drinks, it drinks, we drink,” etc. Mary claimed foul on the ground that conjugations didn’t make sense; but her own contribution was a familiar medley: “Monsieur, bureau, Lafayette, encore, dèpot, merci, madame, bon-bon.” Morris tried “Alice in Wonderland.” “’Twas brillig and the slithey toves did gyre and gimble on the wabe,” but was caught; although he insisted that it was as much French as anything.
To be sure, no one was really trying. Betty, no doubt, could have blundered along tolerably well, and Davis had taken part in a French play, much of which he probably remembered. The game was a frolic and was so played, until Leopold spoke.
“Ma chère amie,” he leaned over and gazed earnestly at Gorgas. He was a dark, grave looking man, the type of scholar Jew. Everyone, of course, could follow his carefully chosen phrases. “When I look into your eyes,” he said slowly, “I see treasure there; for you have that which the world, with all its seeming care for franc and sou, regards ever as above price. First, you have youth, with the future all to spend; and you have faithfulness, a vast store—I see it in your steady brown eyes; and you have beauty born of these two, youth and faithfulness. And besides, while you speak seldom, and sit serene apart, you have rare, rare thoughts. Would that I could share them.”
It seemed almost like a trick to play upon Gorgas, the unschooled. There was a little uneasiness. Mrs. Levering was about to give an appropriate excuse when Gorgas replied.
Her tones were deep and French to the very roots. Her features changed; turns and twists of eye and mouth, which she had caught unwittingly from Bardek, swept across the animated young face and gave a new charm to her words. Ah, how often lately had Bardek made much that same speech to her! And how often had she flamed in reply! Tonight she was swift to rebuke the man before her, first, for his open flattery—Gorgas was quite wrong, here, as she found out later; Leopold was never more honest—and secondly, for his attempt to make a public jest of her. Gorgas could never believe that she was good to look at; always she grew flustered at sudden praise, suspecting some hidden irony.