The Marquis got a table in an alcove of the pavilion so he could talk freely. The contrast between the two men was extreme—the Marquis, in his splendid dragoon uniform, for he had just come from a reception at the house of the general commanding, and François in his shabby clothes. The waiters, who knew that François was a juggler at a cheap place, nevertheless treated him with an odd kind of respect due to a note of command which his voice had never wholly lost.
“I had to go to a dull reception at the house of the general,” said the Marquis when he and François were seated at a little table, “and got away as soon as I could. What a bore are those pink and white girls, clinging to their mothers’ skirts and as ignorant as children! They are quite colorless after Mademoiselle Diane.”
“Diane isn’t ignorant. She could not well be,” replied François, sipping his wine. “But in mind she has an eternal innocence. There is a great difference between the two things—ignorance and innocence.”
“I don’t know about that,” replied the Marquis, whose mind was low, and who was not so intelligent as François. “That capricious little music hall devil has given me more trouble to bring around to my way of thinking than half the girls I have met to-night. But she keeps me dancing after her, damn her, the little darling!”
François laughed at this, and laughed still more when the Marquis inquired anxiously:
“I think it is that great, hulking fellow who sings and dances with her that frightens her. Perhaps she is in love with him; women are such crazy creatures!”
“Oh, no,” cried François, beginning to attack the supper which the waiter had brought, “Diane is not in love with Jean, nor with me either, strange to say, although I was born both handsome and rich.”
The Marquis pushed his chair back a little, and the waiter being out of hearing, brought his fist down on the table.
“The infernal, proud, presumptuous little devil probably thinks she can marry me! Very well, let us see who will beat at that game. Just look at this impudent note she wrote me.”
The Marquis tore from his breast Diane’s cool little note, the only one he had ever had from her.