You are delightfully primitive and unspoiled, and then
I suppose it is natural to like a fellow-countryman best, isn't
it? Now, honest--have you found any girls over here you like as
well as me?"
"I haven't tried to find any," said Frank.
"You aren't a bit disillusioned, are you?" she said. "You simply
shut your eyes and go it blind. A woman likes that in a man. It's
what love ought to be. It's silly of me to throw it away."
"Perhaps it is, Florence," he said. "Who knows but what some day
you may regret it?"
"I often think of that," she returned. "I am afraid all the good
part of me loves you, and all the bad loves the counts and dukes
and earls, you know. And the good is almost drowned in all the
rest, like vegetables in vegetable soup."
She excelled in giving such little dampers to sentiment, and
laughed heartily at Frank's discomfiture.
"You can be awfully cruel," he said. "I wonder you can be so
beautiful when you can think such things and say them. You treat
hearts like toys and laugh when you break them."
"Well, there's one thing, Frank," she said seriously. "I have
never pretended to you or tried to appear better than I am; and
you are the only man I can say that to and not lie!"
IV
The comte de Souvary, towards whom Florence betrayed an
inclination that seemed at times to deserve a warmer word, was a
French gentleman nearing forty. He was a man of distinguished
appearance, with all the gaiety, grace, and charm that, in spite
our popular impression to the contrary, are not seldom found
amongst the nobles of his country.
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