“Tell you! Well, upon my word, you are a pretty flirt! You don’t even know his name! A very nice young lady!”
“Is he a Frenchman, monsieur? I think he must be from the way he bowed. Is he a friend of yours? Nobody else knows Frenchmen here but you. Do tell me who he is.”
“He’s not a Frenchman,” said Sir Simon, “and he’ll never forgive you for mistaking him for one, I can tell you. If you were a man, he would run you through the body for it just as soon as he’d look at you!”
“Mon Dieu!” cried Franceline, opening her eyes wide with wonder, “then I don’t care to know any more about him. I hope I shall never see him again.”
“Yes, but you shall, though, and I’ll take care to tell him,” declared Sir Simon.
“What is it? What is it?” called out M. de la Bourbonais, looking up from a letter that he was writing against time to catch the post. “What are you both quarrelling about again?”
“Petit père, monsieur is so unkind and so disagreeable!”
“And Mlle. Franceline is so cruel and so inquisitive!”
“He won’t tell me who that strange gentleman is, petit père. Canst thou tell me?”
“Oh! ho! I thought we didn’t care to know!” laughed Sir Simon with a mischievous look.