"I rather doubt it," I said.

"You suppose her cold? Ne vous y fiez pas!"

"It is a matter in which I have nothing at stake."

"You young Americans are droll," said M. Pigeonneau; "you never have
anything at stake! But the little one, for example; I'll warrant you
she's not cold. She is admirably made."

"She is very pretty."

"'She is very pretty!' Vous dites cela d'un ton! When you pay
compliments to Mademoiselle Ruck, I hope that's not the way you do
it."

"I don't pay compliments to Mademoiselle Ruck."

"Ah, decidedly," said M. Pigeonneau, "you young Americans are droll!"

I should have suspected that these two ladies would not especially
commend themselves to Madame Beaurepas; that as a maitresse de salon,
which she in some degree aspired to be, she would have found them
wanting in a certain flexibility of deportment. But I should have
gone quite wrong; Madame Beaurepas had no fault at all to find with
her new pensionnaires. "I have no observation whatever to make about
them," she said to me one evening. "I see nothing in those ladies
which is at all deplace. They don't complain of anything; they don't
meddle; they take what's given them; they leave me tranquil. The
Americans are often like that. Often, but not always," Madame