“I do other things, monsieur.”
“What things?”
“What things? Mon Dieu, I read a little, as you perceive, monsieur.”
“Who are you?” I demanded.
“Oh, a mere nobody in such learned company,” she said, shaking her head with a mock humility that annoyed me intensely.
“Very well,” said I, conscious every moment of her pleasure in my discomfiture; “under the circumstances I am going to ask you to accept my escort to La Trappe; for I think you are Mademoiselle Elven, recently of the Odéon theatre.”
At this her eyes widened and the smile on her face became less genuine. “Indeed, I shall not go with you,” she said.
“I’m afraid I’ll have to insist,” said I.
She still balanced her hazel rod across her shoulders, a smile curving her mouth.
“Monsieur,” she said, “do you ride through the world pressing every peasant girl you meet with such ardent entreaties? Truly, your fashion of wooing is not slow, but everybody knows that hussars are headlong gentlemen—‘Nothing is sacred from a hussar,’” she hummed, deliberately, in a parody which made me writhe in my saddle.