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All right; go and bring them up; but be careful of the porter. "I went downstairs and came up again with my mother, who was followed by the abbe, and I fancied that I heard other footsteps behind us. As soon as we were in the kitchen, Melanie offered us chairs, and we all four sat down to deliberate. "'Is he very ill? my mother asked.
"Some of those quaint old things, please," he was saying; and Aleck wondered if he never would hang himself with his own rope. But Lloyd-Jones' cheerful voice went on: "Some of those Hungarian things are jolly and funny, even though you can't understand the words. Makes you want to dance or sing yourself." Aleck groaned, but Mélanie began to sing, with Jones hovering around the piano.
"Surely, Richard, you cannot doubt the patriotism of the French," Mrs. Barclay said, a little reproachfully. "My dear Melanie," her husband said, "I am sorry to say that I very greatly doubt the patriotism of the French. They are more than any people, more even than the English, whom they laugh at as a nation of shopkeepers a money-making race.
Now that the purposes of the Frenchman had been made clear, and since he was still at large, the world was no safe place for unattended women. Aleck pondered deeply over the situation. "Is your amiable cousin's henchman a man to be scared off by our recent little encounter, do you think?" he asked of Mélanie. She considered. "He might be scared, easily enough.
Her quick alertness, her vitality, her passionate seriousness, had slipped away. Aleck put his arms around her very tenderly, and kissed her lips; not a lover's kiss exactly, and yet nothing else. Then he looked into her face. "I shall not do this again, Mélanie dear, till you give me leave. But I have no mind to let you go, either. You and Madame Reynier are going on a cruise with me; will you?
Czipra was accustomed to acquiesce: she immediately took her seat beside her instrument, and began to beat out upon it that lowland reverie, of which so many had wonderingly said that a poet's and an artist's soul had blended therein. At the sound of music Topándy and Melanie came in from the adjoining rooms. Melanie stood behind Czipra; Topándy drew a chair beside her, and smoked furiously.
If it were to arrive at this moment I should be obliged to hasten; and to give the finishing touches to a toilet in a hurried and discomposed manner is to run the risk of spoiling the general effect. What can have happened to Mademoiselle Melanie? Hark! is not that some one? Did you not hear a ring? I am not mistaken; some one did come in. It is the dress at last!"
I should surely have found it much more proper to take up my quarters directly here in your house, if Sárvölgyi had not been kind enough to previously offer his hospitality." "Indeed?" "So please don't offer any objections to my request that I may take Melanie to myself for these few days. Later on I shall bring her back again, and leave her here until fortune desires you to let us go forever."
When they had finished, Veronique, who had not looked at me at all till then, turned to me and said that nobody had ever thought that I should come back. She said it as though she were reproaching me for something shameful. Mélanie put her hands together under her chin, and put her head on one side, just as she used to do when she was a little girl.
"I should not have ventured to disturb you, but there is a matter of importance to be settled. Madame Orlowski has come in person to order six ball-dresses; and she is not satisfied to decide upon the varieties of style that will most become her without consulting Mademoiselle Melanie herself. She insisted upon my bringing you this message."
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