"That will do, Miss Fanshawe. I suppose I am to understand that M. Isidore is the benefactor: that it is from him you have accepted that costly parure; that he supplies your bouquets and your gloves? "
"You express yourself so disagreeably," said she, "one hardly knows how to answer; what I mean to say is, that I occasionally allow Isidore the pleasure and honour of expressing his homage, by the offer of a trifle."
"It comes to the same thing . . . Now, Ginevra, to speak the plain truth, I don't very well understand these matters; but I believe you are doing very wrong—seriously wrong. Perhaps, however, you now feel certain that you will be able to marry M. Isidore—your parents and uncle have given their consent—and, for your part, you love him entirely?"
"Mais pas du tout!" (she always had recourse to French, when about to say something specially heartless and perverse). "Je suis sa reine, mais il n' est pas mon roi."
"Excuse me, I must believe this language is mere nonsense and coquetry. There is nothing great about you, yet you are above profiting by
