"See here, my man—" Ernestine growled, but what she was going to say was cut off by a flood of Gallic impertinence.
"Your man! Ah, non, non, non! Indeed not the man of such a woman as you! I call you 'my voman'? Not by—"
Here Milly intervened to prevent a more explicit illustration of M. Paul's contempt for Ernestine's femininity.
"She call me her 'man'!" the pastry-cook flamed, pointing disdainfully at Ernestine.
"The fellow's been thieving from us for months," Ernestine said angrily, and pointing to the door she said,—"Get out!"
"Oh, Ernestine!" Milly protested.
But M. Paul had "got out" with a few further remarks uncomplimentary to American women, and the damage was done. Ernestine could not be made to see that with the departure of the pastry-cook, the last substantial prop to Milly's fairy structure was gone.
"The beast has been selling our sugar and supplies," Ernestine explained.
"It makes no difference what he has done!" Milly replied with justifiable asperity.
The next morning she set forth to track the fugitive pastry-cook and wile him back to their service. She found him after a time at one of the new hotels, where he had already been engaged as pastry-cook. To Milly's plea that he return to his old allegiance, he orated dramatically upon Ernestine and la femme in general.