_"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. Were they as fresh and sweet as mine?"

"But how do you know, Mademoiselle,"--I answered, after I had given
her a long opportunity to add what I had hoped would follow that
long-drawn-out "I"; (she was going to say, I was sure, that she had
waited for me to come as long as was possible;)--"How do you know that I
bought my flowers elsewhere, or that I bought any? And where can I find
finer ones than you give me?"

"Monsieur is kind enough to say so," she returned. "Can you excuse my