"Oh! you unspeakable idiot!" she said. "Have you no remnant of decency?"
"Do you mean to imply that Sir Richard Calmady would have the insolence, is so much the victim of insular prejudice as, to object to our intimacy?"
Madame de Vallorbes clapped her hands together in a sort of frenzy.
"Idiot, idiot," she repeated. "I wish I could kill you."
Suddenly M. Paul Destournelle had all his wits about him.
"Ah!" he said, with a short laugh, curiously resembling in its malice the bleating of the little goats, "I perceive that which constitutes the obstacle to our union. It shall be removed."
He lifted his Panama hat with studied elegance, and turning down a break-neck, side alley, called, over his shoulder:—
"Abientôt très chère madame."
CHAPTER VII