"Mon Gyu, Phil, mon gars, but you're getting on! And you told her to her face before them all that you wanted to marry her? It's as odd a style of wooing as ever I heard."
"Well, you see, I wanted there to be no mistake about it, Aunt Jeanne. If I don't see Carette again before I leave, she will know how the land lies at all events. If she takes to young Torode while I'm away it's because she likes him best."
"And she,—Carette,—what did she say to it?"
"She didn't say anything."
"Tuts! How did she look, boy? A girl tells more with her face and her eyes than with her tongue, even when they say opposite things."
"I'm not sure how she took it, Aunt Jeanne. How would you have taken it, now?"
"Ma fé! It would depend," she laughed, her old face creasing up with merriment. "If it was Monsieur Right I wouldn't have minded maybe, though I might be a bit taken aback at the newest way in courting."
"Well, I thought she looked something like that. And then, afterwards, I wasn't sure she wasn't angry about it. I don't know. I've had so little to do with girls, you see."
"And you'd not know much more, however much you'd had. You're only a boy still, mon gars."
"Well, I'm going to do a man's work, and it's for Carette I'm going to do it. Put in a good word for me while I'm away, won't you now, Aunt Jeanne? Carette is more to me than anything else in the world."