from passion.

Young Hartley laughed and turned to look at his companion, but Ste.
Marie sat still in his place, his hat pulled a little down over his
brows and his handsome chin buried in the folds of the white silk
muffler with which for some obscure reason he had swathed his neck.

"This is the first time in many years," said the Englishman, "that I
have known you to be silent for ten whole minutes. Are you ill, or are
you making up little epigrams to say at the dinner-party?"

Ste. Marie waved a despondent glove.

"I 'ave," said he, "w'at you call ze blue. Papillons noirs--clouds in my
soul." It was a species of jest with Ste. Marie--and he seemed never to
tire of it--to pretend that he spoke English very brokenly. As a matter
of fact, he spoke it quite as well as any Englishman and without the
slightest trace of accent. He had discovered a long time before this--it
may have been while the two were at Eton together--that it annoyed
Hartley very much, particularly when it was done in company and before
strangers. In consequence he became on such occasions a sort of
comic-paper caricature of his race, and by dint of much practice, added
to a naturally alert mind, he became astonishingly ingenious in the
torture of that honest but unimaginative gentleman whom he considered
his best friend. He achieved the most surprising expressions by the mere
literal translation of French idiom, and he could at any time bring
Hartley to a crimson agony by calling him "my dear "'before other men,
whereas at the equivalent "mon cher" the Englishman would doubtless
never, as the phrase goes, have batted an eye.