"I will not eat them if I may not play for them!" cried the
child; and with one sweep of her hand she sent them all off
the table on to the floor, and stamped on them again and again
with her tiny foot. "You have no right to speak to me so!" she
went on energetically; "no one but my papa speaks to me; and I
don't know you, and I don't like you, and you are very ugly!"
and then she turned her back on the Countess and stood in
dignified silence.

"_Mais c'est un petit diable!_" cried the astonished lady,
fanning herself vigorously with her pocket-handkerchief. She
was discomfited though she had won the victory, and hailed the
return of her partner with the _eau sucrée_ as a relief. "A
thousand thanks, M. Jules! What if we take another turn,
though this room really is of insufferable heat."

Madelon was let confronting Horace, a most ill-used little
girl, not crying, but with flushed cheeks and pouting lips--a
little girl who had lost her game and her bonbons, and felt at
war with all the world in consequence. Horace was sorry for
her; he, too, thought she had been ill-used, and no sooner was
the Countess fairly off than he said, very immorally, no
doubt,

"Would you like to have your game back again?"

"No," said Madelon, in whom this speech roused a fresh sense
of injury; "I have no more bonbons."