Mrs. Black smiled complacently, and with a bland sidewise glance at him, remarked:
“She grows upon one.”
“Yes,” said he, with self-satisfied obtuseness, “yes, she is magnetic, she is a genuine genius.”
“Precisely, she stirs one’s heart strangely,” replied Mrs. Black.
“Yes, I have noted that; it’s very remarkable.”
“You should speak of it to her at the first opportunity.”
Dufour started a little, flushed and finally laughed as one does who discovers a bit of clever and harmless treachery.
“If I only dared,” he presently said, with something very like fervor in his tone. “If I only dared.”
Mrs. Black looked at him a moment, as if measuring in her mind his degree of worthiness, then with a wave of her hand she said: