“Regardez ses dents.”
“The darling thing!”
“Il est—oh, dear!—il est ravissante!”—with a disastrous plunge into gender.
“Tiens! il rit. C’est moi qui le fais rire.”
“To think,” said the younger Englishwoman to her sister, “of this wee mite travelling about in an open motor!”
“He’s having the time of his life. He enjoys it as much as I do,” said Aristide, in his excellent English.
The lady started. She was a well-bred, good-humoured woman in the early thirties, stout, with reddish hair, and irregular though comely features. Her sister was thin, faded, sandy, and kind-looking.
“I thought you were French,” she said, apologetically.
“So I am,” replied Aristide. “Provençal of Provence, Méridional of the Midi, Marseillais of Marseilles.”
“But you talk English perfectly.”