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14 "Why, sir, I don't know if I can"

"Speak, mademoiselle, for Heaven's sake! I contemplate nothing that can possibly give you offense; quite the reverse: You both appear so charming to me that I call Heaven to witness, here and now, that I will make offer of my heart and claw to either of you that will accept them, the very instant that I learn whether I am a pie or something else; for," I added, lowering my voice a little to the young creature, "I feel an inexpressible turtle-dovish sensation as I gaze on you that causes a strange disquietude within me."

"Why, truly," said the turtle-dove, blushing more deeply still, "I don't know whether it is the sunlight striking on you through those poppies, but your plumage does seem to me to have a slight tint of"

She dared say no more.

"Oh, perplexity!" I cried, "how am I to know what to depend on? how am I to decide to whom to give my heart when it is divided thus cruelly between you? O Socrates! how admirable was the precept that you gave us, but how difficult of observance, when you enjoined upon us: 'Know thyself'!"

I had not tried my voice since that day when my most unlucky song had so disturbed my father's equanimity, and now the idea occurred to me of making use of it as a means whereby I might arrive at the truth. "Parbleu!" I said to myself, "since monsieur my father turned me out of doors for the first couplet, it seems a reasonable enough conclusion that the second should produce an effect of some kind on these ladies." So, making a polite bow to start with