"Not go!" exclaimed mademoiselle, in dismay. "But it is given for me! It is my fête! Josef Papin planned it entirely for me, he said."
Mademoiselle was now growing rosy red, for, with a child's eagerness to carry her point at all hazards, she had said more than she meant to.
"Then why did not Josef offer himself as your escort?"
"He will, probably, later; but," and she tossed her head like the spoiled beauty she was, "it will serve him right, for being so slow, to find that I have accepted another. Besides which," and she shrugged her shoulders with all the airs of a Parisian dame, "you know your bourgeois etiquette. I cannot accept another: it would be a just cause for a duel au pistolets."
"C'est vrai," said the doctor, with an answering shrug, and looking woefully perplexed.
"Now, if you will permit me," suggested the captain, "since mademoiselle is so sure Mr. Papin will ask her later, why can she not plead to the chevalier a previous engagement?"
But not for a moment would mademoiselle listen to that.
"And be the laughing-stock of all St. Louis when it gets about, as it surely will. I refuse the chevalier because I prefer to wait for Monsieur Papin. Monsieur Papin hears of it and invites some one else to teach me not to be so sure, or," primly, "I have given him undue encouragement."
"Then," said the doctor, gravely, "I see nothing for it but that you stay away from the picnic and write the chevalier that you have decided not to go. Unless," he added hastily, seeing the gathering storm on Pelagie's brow, "unless—" and then he hesitated, much embarrassed. "Perhaps our young friend here would like to attend one of our rural picnics, and would be willing to look after you and give you the opportunity of writing to the chevalier that you have a previous engagement."
It was now my turn to blush. I had been ardently longing to offer my services, but not for a moment had I thought of daring. Now it was thrust upon me.