Her _"Bon jour, Monsieur,"_ was as cordial
as ever; and it even seemed to me--and that didn't in the least tend to
compose me--that her eyes sparkled with an archness which I had never
seen in them before, and that her voice had in it a tinge of malice, as
she held out to me two of her finest bunches, saying,--
_"Est-ce que, Monsieur en desire deux encore ce soir?"_
I was very angry with her for being in such good-humor, and believe I
was anything but aimable or polite with her. Why did she not look
hurt or offended and reproach me for my desertion, instead of almost
disarming my senseless anger by her gentleness?
"It seems that Monsieur forgets his old friends, sometimes," she
continued, as I took the flowers she had been holding towards me, and
was fumbling in my pocket for the change.
"Forget!" I stammered; for the temper I found her in had so completely
ruffled mine, that I was hardly sufficiently master of myself to be able
to answer her at all,--"what makes you think I forget? Am I not here
this evening, as usual?"
"This evening, yes,--but last night you did not come; or were you here
too late to find me? I"----she paused, and, with her color a little
heightened, as though she had narrowly escaped making a disclosure,
looked another way,--"Monsieur must have bought his flowers elsewhere,
yesterday.
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