"Henry! He begged me to ask you whether you would authorise him to ask grandmamma for your hand?"
"My hand! Henry?" she exclaimed, and her accent expressed her bewilderment.
"Why, yes!--it is as though he were my brother--Henry!"
"Well, but he is not your brother, nevertheless; therefore do not let us trouble about him as a brother, but as a lover. What is your answer?"
"My answer! why does Henry apply to me first? Instead of asking my permission to speak to grandmamma, he ought to have asked grandmamma's permission to speak to me."
"There; didn't I say that you were a most excellent little person, always knowing the correct thing, and all the rest of it!"
"Oh, no! it is not wrong--on the contrary! only it is a trifle embarrassing. Tell me, now that I have made this mistake in speaking to you first, will you give me an answer? or must I set to work to put matters right again, by applying now to grandmamma, who in her turn will apply to you, etc., etc."
"Well, then, let me finish my rigmarole. Count Henry de Bracieux was born on the 22nd of January, 1870. His entire fortune, until after the death of his grandmother, consists of twenty-four thousand pounds, which amount brings in--"
"Oh! you needn't trouble to tell me about money matters; in the first place, they don't interest me, and then, as I do not wish to marry Henry, it is useless to tell me all that!"
"For several reasons, the best of which is that I know him too well."
"It certainly is not very flattering, this reason of yours!"
"I mean what I said just now, that, living with Henry as I have done for the last four years, I consider him as a brother."
"Then that applies to me, too; do you look upon me, too, as a brother?" asked Jean de Blaye, trying to speak in an indifferent tone.
"You, oh, no! not at all; you are thirty-five at least!"
"Only that?--ah, well, it's all the same! you don't seem to me like a brother!"
She was silent a moment, thinking, whilst he stood waiting, with a sort of vague hope.
"You seem to me more like an uncle," she said at last.
"Oh!" remarked Jean, with an accent that betrayed his vexation, "that is very nice."
"You are annoyed with me for saying that?" she asked, in her pretty, coaxing way.
"Oh, not at all! I am delighted, on the contrary; it is very satisfactory, for, with you, one knows exactly what to count on; and then, if one has any delusions, well, they don't have to hang fire."