"Will it annoy you, if she comes to you often for a kiss?"
"Oh! certainly not; far from it! especially if—especially if she—no, it wouldn't annoy me."
Monsieur Callé had tried to pay a compliment to the lady on his arm, but it would not come out.
"Well," continued Éléonore, "my husband often pushes me away when I take a fancy to kiss him."
"He does it in joke, of course?"
"No, monsieur; sometimes he even scolds me; he declares that my manners are vulgar; that only workingmen's wives kiss their husbands like that. Is that true?"
"Oh! I can't tell you, madame."
"If it is, I am sorry my husband isn't a workingman; because then I could kiss him when I wanted to, and he wouldn't think I was ridiculous."
Callé made no reply, but he thought:
"It seems that this lady is very fond of kissing. If I were her husband, I wouldn't object. She isn't such a beautiful woman as Madame Mirotaine, but her manner is gentler—and then, she seems to be very caressing."