He seemed to see us for the first time and negligently broke off
in his compliment; raising himself and saluting us. "Ah," he
continued indolently, "two of the maidens of Caylus, I see. With
an odd pair of hands apiece, unless I am mistaken, Why do you not
set them spinning, Mademoiselle?" and he regarded us with that
smile which--with other things as evil--had made him famous.

Croisette pulled horrible faces behind his back. We looked hotly
at him; but could find nothing to say.

"You grow red!" he went on, pleasantly--the wretch!--playing
with us as a cat does with mice. "It offends your dignity,
perhaps, that I bid Mademoiselle set you spinning? I now would
spin at Mademoiselle's bidding, and think it happiness!"

"We are not girls!" I blurted out, with the flush and tremor of
a boy's passion. "You had not called my godfather, Anne de
Montmorenci a girl, M. le Vidame!" For though we counted it a
joke among ourselves that we all bore girls' names, we were young
enough to be sensitive about it.

He shrugged his shoulders. And how he dwarfed us all as he stood
there dominating our terrace! "M. de Montmorenci was a man," he
said scornfully. "M. Anne de Caylus is--"

And the villain deliberately turned his great back upon us,
taking his seat on the low wall near Catherine's chair. It was
clear even to our vanity that he did not think us worth another
word--that we had passed absolutely from his mind. Madame Claude