"Yes, if you will permit me the pleasure. It is a long time since I had that happiness."
"I hope you're going to teach me something new."
"By Jove! I'm not at the end of my tether. Besides, were new songs lacking, your beautiful eyes would inspire me to improvise a ballad in sixteen couplets."
Blanche brought her sitar and handed it to Chaudoreille, who raised his eyes to Heaven and heaved a big sigh as he took it.
"Are you going to be ill, Monsieur Chaudoreille?" questioned the young girl, astonished at this moaning.
"No, I am not ill; however, I feel rather uneasy," answered Chaudoreille, venturing to try the effect of the glances and smiles which he had studied before the glass.
"You seem to have difficulty in breathing," responded Blanche; "perhaps your supper last night did not agree with you."
"Pardon me; I swear to you it did not trouble me in the least. I have a horror of indigestion. Out upon it! I never put myself in the way of having it."
"Sing to me the air you are going to teach me; that will make you feel better."
"She is innocence itself," said Chaudoreille to himself while tuning the sitar; "she doesn't understand what makes me sigh. Despite that, however, I can see that she's glad to see me. Patience; before long her heart will awaken, and I shall be its conqueror."