“Madame,” he said stiffly, “a jest is an excellent thing. But pardon me if I say that it is ill played on a fasting man.”
Madame desisted from laughter that she might speak. “A fasting man?” she cried. “And he has eaten two partridges!”
“Fasting from love, Madame.”
Madame St. Lo held up her hands. “And it’s not two minutes since he took a kiss!”
He winced, was silent a moment, and then seeing that he got nothing by the tone he had adopted he cried for quarter.
“A little mercy, Madame, as you are beautiful,” he said, wooing her with his eyes. “Do not plague me beyond what a man can bear. Dismiss, I pray you, this good creature—whose charms do but set off yours as the star leads the eye to the moon—and make me the happiest man in the world by so much of your company as you will vouchsafe to give me.”
“That may be but a very little,” she answered, letting her eyes fall coyly, and affecting to handle the tucker of her low ruff. But he saw that her lip twitched; and he could have sworn that she mocked him to Suzanne, for the girl giggled.
Still by an effort he controlled his feelings. “Why so cruel?” he murmured, in a tone meant for her alone, and with a look to match. “You were not so hard when I spoke with you in the gallery, two evenings ago, Madame.”
“Was I not?” she asked. “Did I look like this? And this?” And, languishing, she looked at him very sweetly after two fashions.
“Something.”