"For my part, I don't consider it good form to make blunders in speaking."
"Why, did you have such a very fine education, Thélénie? I thought you'd never been to school; I had an idea that your mother sold cooked sausages in a shop where there was always a long line of people waiting; there was a stove——"
The lovely brunette flashed a savage glance at Héloïse and replied, smiling bitterly:
"Ah! so you propose to be nasty too, do you? Be careful, my poor Héloïse, you won't have much chance with me."
"I have no intention of saying anything nasty! Between ourselves, you can't make me believe that you're a duchess's daughter. I have been told that your mother sold sausages fried on a stove, but I don't see any harm in it. It's as good a trade as another."
"And you threw that at me because I told you that you spelt cash with a q."
"Oh! nonsense! what do you suppose I care for a q more or less! what a fuss about nothing! I assure you, Thélénie, that I hadn't the slightest intention of making you angry; that would be very stupid on my part. You take me to the theatre and to drive with you, and sometimes you lend me money when I haven't any; so why should I try to get up a quarrel with you?"
"Then try to curb your tongue, Héloïse, for you may happen to say before witnesses something that I would never forgive. Between ourselves, I certainly do not undertake to make myself any better than I am; my birth was very humble, I don't deny it; but as I grew up, and especially when I began to know well-bred men, with gentlemanly manners, I realized that if I wanted to arrive, I must first of all put myself in a position to hold my own with them. So I hired teachers and studied; I was determined to know my own language. I also learned a little English and Italian, and I assure you that then I felt much more at my ease in the society of men of the world, who are very glad to take a pretty, fashionably-dressed woman to drive in a calèche, but who blush for her when she uses bad grammar before their friends and acquaintances.—What is it, Mélie? what do you want of us now?"
"I beg pardon, madame," replied the maid, who had just entered. "I forgot to tell madame that another gentleman came almost at the same time as Monsieur Chamoureau."
"Who was it?"