I was angry: I have forgotten my words; what were they."
"Such as it is best to forget!" said I, still quite calm and chill.
"Then it was my words which wounded you? Consider them unsaid: permit my retractation; accord my pardon."
"I am not angry, monsieur."
"Then you are worse than angry—grieved. Forgive me, Miss Lucy."
"M. Emanuel, I do forgive you."
"Let me hear you say, in the voice natural to you, and not in that alien tone, 'Mon ami, je vous pardonne.'"
He made me smile. Who could help smiling at his wistfulness, his simplicity, his earnestness?
"Bon!" he cried; "Voilà que le jour va poindre! Dîtes donc, mon ami."
"Monsieur Paul, je vous pardonne."
"I will have no monsieur: speak the other word, or I shall not believe you sincere: another effort—mon ami, or else in English,—my friend!"
Now, "my friend" had rather another sound and significancy than "mon ami," it did not breathe the same sense of domestic and intimate affection:
