“Madame,” said Eusebe, stammering and becoming red and pale by turns, “madame, I wish to purchase you.”
The peculiar accent and costume of the young man led Adéonne to suppose Eusebe to be a foreigner. She understood him to propose an engagement in the line of her profession.
“I thank you, monsieur, but an engagement of three years binds me to the theatre in which I am now performing, and I have decided not to sing in the provinces, much less in a foreign country. I am too good a patriot for that. I am, however, not the less grateful for the offers you have come to make. For what city did you wish to engage me?”
“I have evidently not expressed myself clearly, madame, since I see you do not comprehend me. I do not come to engage you. I come to purchase you.”
“For whom?” asked the artiste, with disgust.
“For myself.”
“If this is done for a wager, monsieur, I find it to be in more than questionable taste. If it be a jest, I think it very gross and insulting.”
“It is neither the one nor the other,” said Eusebe, terrified by the indignation of the cantatrice.
“Begone, monsieur!” exclaimed Adéonne, imperiously. “Begone, or I will have you driven from the house. You have come to insult a woman, under her own roof, who has never done you wrong. It is cowardly!”