“Confess that you are thinking of the sacred gods of French etiquette,” I said, hoping to make her smile.
She acknowledged the hit, with a little confusion.
“Then please blame me, and not your conscience, for I made you talk.”
“That is so. You make me talk against my will.”
“And now you are wondering how you can run away.”
“How do you know me so well?” she said, forced at last into a smile.
“Oh, I do. There is a very stern, uncompromising Mademoiselle Duvernoy, and there is a very gay, happy Mademoiselle Duvernoy.”
“Once, there was a very frivolous one,” she said, nodding.
“I didn’t say that—”
“But it is so; oh, very frivolous—very mondaine, before the war—who loved good things, as a child loves sugar plums!”