Page:The Reverberator (2nd edition, American issue, London and New York, Macmillan & Co., 1888).djvu/126

116 "How then shall I know what to say to him?"

"Ah, you always know!" Gaston exclaimed.

"How will that help us if he doesn't know what to answer?"

"You will draw him out—he is full of bonhomie."

"Well, I won't quarrel with your bonhomme (if he's silent—there are much worse faults), nor even with the fat young lady, though she is evidently vulgar. It is not for ourselves I am afraid; it's for them. They will be very unhappy."

"Never, never!" said Gaston. "They are too simple. They are not morbid. And don't you like Francie? You haven't told me so," he added in a moment.

"She says 'Parus,' my dear boy."

"Ah, to Susan too that seemed the principal obstacle. But she has got over it. I mean Susan has got over the obstacle. We shall make her speak French; she has a capital disposition for it; her French is already almost as good as her English."

"That oughtn't to be difficult. What will you have? Of course she is very pretty and I'm sure she is good. But I won't tell you she is a marvel, because you must remember (you young fellows think your own point of view and your own experience everything), that I have seen beauties without number. I have known the most charming women of our time—women of an order to which Miss Francie, con rispetto parlando, will never