"Please—please don't misunderstand me!" she stammered, like a frightened child—"I—I have no temper! I—I—feel nothing—I only want to please you—to know what you wish—"
She broke off—her eyes, lifted to his, had a strange, wild stare, but he was too absorbed in his own particular and personal difficulty to notice this. He went on, speaking rapidly—
"If you want to please me you will first of all be perfectly normal," he said—"Make up your mind to be calm and good-natured. I cannot stand an emotional woman all tantrums and tears. I like good sense and good manners. You ought to have both, with all the books you have read—"
She gave a sudden low laugh, empty of mirth.
"Books!" she echoed—and raising her arms above her head she let them drop again at her sides with a gesture of utter abandonment. "Ah yes! Books! Books by the Sieur Amadis de Jocelin!"
Her hair was ruffled and fell about her face,—her cheeks had flamed into a feverish red. The tragic beauty of her expression annoyed him.
"Your hair is coming down," he said, with a coldly critical smile—"You look like a Bacchante!"
She paid no attention to this remark. She was apparently talking to herself.
"Books!" she said again—"Such sweet love-letters and poems by the
Sieur Amadis de Jocelin!"
He grew impatient.