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He looked about at the rest of us, as if to appeal from Miss Ruck's insensibility, and went to deposit his rejected tribute on a bench. "Won't you give it to me?" asked Miss Church, in faultless French. "J'adore le sirop, moi." M. Pigeonneau came back with alacrity, and presented the glass with a very low bow. "I adore good manners," murmured the old man.
"I had a very late glimpse," I answered, "and it was all I could possibly desire." "I have always noticed," rejoined M. Pigeonneau, "That your desires are more moderate than mine. Que voulez-vous? I am of the old school. Je crois que la race se perd. I regret the departure of that young girl: she had an enchanting smile. Ce sera une femme d'esprit. For the mother, I can console myself.
There was something imperious, fantastic, and strange in the motion communicated to the bell-rope which disturbed me, and it was with real anxiety that I went myself to open the door. And whom did I find on the landing? The young American recently so absorbed at the reading of my treatise. It was Miss Morgan in person. "Monsieur Pigeonneau?" "Yes."
"He thinks you can't understand him when he talks like that," said Miss Ruck. "But I do understand you, always!" "So I have always ventured to hope, my dear Miss Ruck." "Well, if I didn't, it wouldn't be much loss," rejoined this young lady. "Allons, en marche!" cried M. Pigeonneau, smiling still, and undiscouraged by her inhumanity. "Let as make together the tour of the garden."
"Oh, they don't come for economy," I answered. "They must be rich." "They don't come for my beaux yeux for mine," said M. Pigeonneau, sadly. "Perhaps it's for yours, young man. Je vous recommande la mere." I reflected a moment. "They came on account of Mr. Ruck because at hotels he's so restless." M. Pigeonneau gave me a knowing nod. "Of course he is, with such a wife as that a femme superbe.
"Ah, decidedly," said M. Pigeonneau, "you young Americans are droll!" I should have suspected that these two ladies would not especially commend themselves to Madame Beaurepas; that as a maitresse de salon, which she in some degree aspired to be, she would have found them wanting in a certain flexibility of deportment.
I haven't yet told you that I have come to beg you to help me to design an Egyptian costume for the fancy ball at Countess N 's. I want a costume that shall be absolutely accurate and bewilderingly beautiful. I have been hard at work at it already, M. Pigeonneau. I have gone over my recollections, for I remember very well when I lived in Thebes six thousand years ago.
"Oh, la belle rencontre, nos aimables convives; the prettiest girl in the world, in effect!" We immediately greeted and joined the young ladies, who, like ourselves, were walking arm in arm and enjoying the scene. "I was citing you with admiration to my friend even before I had recognised you," said M. Pigeonneau to Miss Ruck.
My movement had given the alarm, and Aurora Church and M. Pigeonneau got up; Miss Ruck alone did not, in the local phrase, derange herself. Mrs. Church, beneath her modest little bonnet, looked very serious, but not at all fluttered; she came straight to her daughter, who received her with a smile, and then she looked all round at the rest of us, very fixedly and tranquilly, without bowing.
Old M. Pigeonneau had more than once proposed to me to take a walk, but I had hitherto been unable to respond to so alluring an invitation. It befell, however, one afternoon, that I perceived him going forth upon a desultory stroll, with a certain lonesomeness of demeanour that attracted my sympathy.
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