"Why, Peggy, what has poor Jules done?"
"Oh, Jules!—he is nothing. I have just engaged myself to him to get rid of him, and now I have some right to be let alone. He's only the fourth one of your victims that I've accepted, and doctored up, and set on foot again. I take them in rotation, and let them easily down to marrying some girl of capacity suitable to them. And until you are married off, I have no prospect of ever being anything but second choice."
Angélique laughed.
"Your clever tongue so fascinates men that this is all mockery, your being second choice. But indeed I like men, Peggy; if they had not the foolishness of falling in love."
"Angélique Saucier, when do you intend to settle in life?"
"I do not know," said the French girl slowly. "It is pleasant to be as we are."
Peggy glanced at her through the dark.
"Do you intend to be a nun?"
"No, I have no vocation."
"Well, if you don't marry, the time will come when you'll be called an old maid."