"I wish nothing, Mademoiselle," said poor Gabriel, with a melancholy gush of courage, "but to die in your service."
"Say you so?" she replied, with one of those provokingly unembarrassed smiles of good-nature which your true lovers find far more killing than the cruelest frown; "it is the speech of a good villager of Charrebourg. Well, then, you shall have them another time."
"But, as your excellence is so good as to observe, I have won the game," said Gabriel, reassured by the sound of his own voice, "and to say I should have something as—as a token of victory, I would ask, if Mademoiselle will permit, for my poor old aunt at home, who is so very fond of those flowers, just one of the white roses which Mademoiselle has in her hand; it will give her so much pleasure."
"The poor old woman! Surely you may pluck some fresh from the bush; but tell Marguerite, or she will be vexed."
"But, Mademoiselle, pardon me, I have not time: one is enough, and I think there are none so fine upon the tree as that; besides, I know she would like it better for having been in Mademoiselle's hand."
"Then let her have it by all means," said Lucille; and so saying, she placed the flower in Gabriel's trembling fingers. Had he yielded to his impulse, he would have received it kneeling. He was intoxicated with adoration and pride; he felt as if at that moment he was the sultan of the universe, but her slave.
The unconscious author of all this tumult meanwhile had left the window. The rivals were tête-à-tête upon the stage of their recent contest. Jacque stood with his hand in his breast, eyeing Gabriel with a sullen sneer. He held the precious rose in his hand, and still gazed at the vacant window.
"And so your aunt loves a white rose better than a slice of bread?" ejaculated Jacque. "Heaven! what a lie—ha, ha, ha!"
"Well, I won the game and I won the rose," said Gabriel, tranquilly. "I can't wonder you are a little vexed."
"Vexed?—bah! I thought she would have offered you a piece of money," retorted Jacque; "and if she had, I venture to say we should have heard very little about that nice old aunt with the penchant for white roses."