"I'm crazy about him! Why, dearie, after this—we're—we're almost married! Now watch me show him how deeply I'm offended."
But when she appeared in the dining-room, late as usual, her frigidity was not especially marked. On the contrary, her face rippled into one smile after another, and seizing Blake by both hands, she danced around him, singing:
"You did it! You did it! You did it! Hurrah for a jolly life in the pest-house!"
Madame La Branche was inclined to be shocked at this behavior, but inasmuch as Papa Montegut was beaming angelically upon the two young people, she allowed herself to be mollified.
"I couldn't believe Vittoria," Myra Nell told Norvin. "Don't you know the danger you run?"
Mr. La Branche exclaimed: "I am desolated at the consequences of my selfishness! I did not sleep a wink. I can never atone."
"Quite right," his wife agreed. "You must have been mad, Montegut. It was criminal of you to rush forth and embrace him in that manner."
"But, delight of my soul, the news he bore! The joy of seeing him! It unmanned me." The Creole waved his hands wildly, as if at a loss for words.
"Oh, you fibber! Norvin told me he'd never met you," said Myra Nell.
"Eh! Impossible! We are associates in business; business of a most important—But what does that term signify to you, my precious ladybird? Nothing! Enough, then, to say that he saved me from disaster. Naturally I was overjoyed and forgot myself."