“Very polite of you, Monsieur Bertrand.”
“Oh, no! I say that in all honesty. You look to be a good girl, too, and it would be a pity to let you get caught. My master’s a fine fellow, but as soon as he sees a pretty face, he flashes up like powder! it’s too much for him. He’ll swear that it will last forever; but at the first village where he sees another pretty girl, he’ll take fire and swear the same to her.”
“Oh! that’s very wicked!”
“No, it’s a disease of youth, and it will pass away!—You see, in Paris I can’t always be at his heels to warn the pretty girls he makes love to; besides, in the big cities, the girls know enough about such things not to need any warning. But when I happen to see my lieutenant talking to a child who looks to me to be virtuous and respectable, like you, then I just whisper in her ear: ‘Look out for yourself!’ and if that don’t save her, it ain’t my fault, at all events.”
Denise made no reply, for she was reflecting upon what Bertrand had just said; he wiped his forehead with his handkerchief, drank, and replied:
“However, the proof that Monsieur Auguste’s a fine young man is that, when he reflects, he don’t make a fool of himself. For instance, he found you to his taste; well, he didn’t come again to see you; he told me that it was for fear of getting to be too fond of you.”
“Too fond of me!” cried Denise. “What! did he really say that, monsieur? Then he loves me.”
“Not at all, my pretty child; that is to say, not any more than the others. But he would have tried to seduce you as a matter of habit, and you might perhaps have listened to him; for he’s a good-looking fellow, and he has such a way of telling of his love that he’d make a woman of sixty believe in it.”
“And that’s why he hasn’t been here?” Denise inquired, with a sigh.
“Yes; but to-day he remembered your saying that you didn’t love him; so then he came.”