nd usages, and cling to creeds
outworn. Above all, to that creed which in the age of powder and
compliment, no less than in the age of chivalry, enjoined absolute
devotion and courtesy towards women."

"Against mere courtesy reasonably exercised and in due season, I have
nothing to say," replied Mademoiselle Dufresnoy; "but the half-barbarous
homage of the Middle Ages is as little to my taste as the scarcely less
barbarous refinement of the Addison and Georgian periods. Both are alike
unsound, because both have a basis of insincerity. Just as there is a
mock refinement more vulgar than simple vulgarity, so are there
courtesies which humiliate and compliments that offend."

"Mademoiselle is pleased to talk in paradoxes," said I.

Mademoiselle unlocked her door, and turning towards me with the same
half-mocking smile and the same air of raillery, said:--

"Monsieur, it is written in your English histories that when John le Bon
was taken captive after the battle of Cressy, the Black Prince rode
bareheaded before him through the streets of London, and served him at
table as the humblest of his attendants. But for all that, was John any
the less a prisoner, or the Black Prince any the less a conqueror?"

"You mean, perhaps, that you reject all courtesy based on mere
ceremonial. Let me then put the case of this _Froissart_ more
plainly--as I would have done from the first, had I dared to speak the
simple truth."

"And that is...?"

"That it will give me more pleasure to resign the book to you,
Mademoiselle, than to possess it myself."

Mademoiselle Dufresnoy colors up, looks both haughty and amused, and
ends by laughing.

"In truth, Monsieur," she says merrily, "if your politeness threatened
at first to be too universal, it ends by becoming unnecessarily
particular."

"Say rather, Mademoiselle, that you will not have the book on any
terms!" I exclaim impatiently.

"Because you have not yet offered it to me upon any just or reasonable
grounds."

"Well, then, bluntly and frankly, as student to student, I beg you to
spare me the trouble of carrying this book back to the Boulevard. Yours,
Mademoiselle, was the first intention. You saw the book before I saw it.
You would have bought it on the spot, but had to go home for the money.
In common equity, it is yours. In common civility, as student to
student, I offer it to you. Say, is it yes or no?"

"Since you put it so simply and so generously, and since I believe y