"Sometimes they do. And suppose I wanted you to do something of the sort for me——"
"Why, I should be only too happy, if it were a means of making myself agreeable to you."
"Ah! you do not know me, you see. I am very peculiar. I want the man who loves me to gratify all my tastes, all my whims; to divine them himself; I do not understand the love that hesitates before a desire of the loved one. If I had been a man, I would have thrown myself into the water, into the flames, to prove my love for a woman! I would have defied all dangers, challenged all my rivals—in short, I would have turned the world upside down, aye, and committed crimes, if she had asked me to."
Albert, who was at a loss to understand the purport of her remarks, looked at her with a smile, saying:
"Have you some little crime you would like me to commit? or would you like me to jump into the water?"
Madame Baldimer pressed her lips together impatiently, as she replied:
"Mon Dieu! monsieur, what will you say next? I should be very sorry, indeed, if the slightest accident should happen to you on my account. Really, I don't know why I said that. I don't always consider what I say."
"But you consider what is said to you, surely?" rejoined Albert, taking her hand.
She smiled, and seemed to reflect for a moment.
"Where do you live now?" she asked. "Is it true that you have moved?"