t?" Mme. de Brecourt asked,
giving him another cup of tea.

"Only to you. She's perfectly simple. It's impossible to imagine
anything better. And think of the delight of having that charming object
before one's eyes--always, always! It makes a different look-out for
life."

Mme. Brecourt's lively head tossed this argument as high as if she had
carried a pair of horns. "My poor child, what are you thinking of? You
can't pick up a wife like that--the first little American that comes
along. You know I hoped you wouldn't marry at all--what a pity I think
it for a man. At any rate if you expect us to like Miss--what's her
name?--Miss Fancy, all I can say is we won't. We can't DO that sort of
thing!"

"I shall marry her then," the young man returned, "without your leave
given!"

"Very good. But if she deprives you of our approval--you've always had
it, you're used to it and depend on it, it's a part of your life--you'll
hate her like poison at the end of a month."

"I don't care then. I shall have always had my month."

"And she--poor thing?"

"Poor thing exactly! You'll begin to pity her, and that will make you
cultivate charity, and cultivate HER WITH it; which will then make you
find out how adorable she is. Then you'll like her, then you'll love
her, then you'll see what a perfect sense for the right thing, the right
thing for ME, I've had, and we shall all be happy together again."

"But how can you possibly know, with such people," Mme. de Brecourt
demanded, "what you've got hold of?"

"By having a feeling for what's really, what's delicately good and
charming. You pretend to have it, and yet in such a case as this you
try to be stupid. Give that up; you might as well first as last, for
the girl's an exquisite fact, she'll PREVAIL, and it will be better to
accept her than to let her accept you."

Mme. de Brecourt asked him if Miss Dosson had a fortune, and he said
he knew nothing about that. Her father certainly must be rich, but he
didn't mean to ask for a penny with her. American fortunes moreover were
the last things to count upon; a truth of which they had seen too many
examples. To this his sister had replied: "Papa will never listen to
that."

"Listen to what?"

"To your not finding out, to your not asking for settlements--comme cela
se fait."

"Pardon me, papa will find out for himself; and he'll know perfectly
whether to ask or whether to leave it alone. That's the sort of thing he
does know.