MADAME LA MARQUISE
love dearly, playing bear and ready to eat up both of these young turtle doves. When I remonstrate he wants to know whether I will have my chicken roasted on a spit or en casserole! Oh, you are too silly, Lemois!”
“But she is like my daughter, madame,” replied Lemois humbly, and yet with a certain dignity.
“And, therefore, she mustn’t marry an honest young fisherman. Is that what you mean?”
Lemois merely inclined his head.
“And pray what would you make of her—a countess?”
A grim baffled smile ruffled the edges of the old man’s lips as he tried again to turn the conversation, but she would not listen.
“No, I see it all! You want some flat-chested apothecary, or some fat clerk, or a notary, or a grocer, or— Oh, I know all about it! Now do you go and get your dinner ready—anything will suit me—and when it is over and Monsieur Herbert is firmly settled in his big chair, with the funny heads listening to everything we say, I am going to tell you a story about one of your mismated marriages, and I want you to listen, Monsieur Bear, with your terrible growl and your great claws and
191
