“So much?  What will you give me, then, to tell you what I know?”

“More than all that treasure, Madam.  A place—­”

“Ah! a ‘place in the heart of a people!’ I prefer a locality more restricted.”

“In my own heart, then; yes, of course!”

She helped herself daintily to a portion of the white meat of the fowl.  “Yes,” she went on, as though speaking to herself, “on the whole, I rather like him.  Yet what a fool!  Ah, such a droll idiot!”

“How so, Madam?” I expostulated.  “I thought I was doing very well.”

“Yet you can not guess how to persuade me?”

“No; how could that be?”

“Always one gains by offering some equivalent, value for value—­especially with women, Monsieur.”

She went on as though to herself.  “Come, now, I fancy him!  He is handsome, he is discreet, he has courage, he is not usual, he is not curious; but ah, mon Dieu, what a fool!”

“Admit me to be a fool, Madam, since it is true; but tell me in my folly what equivalent I can offer one who has everything in the world—­wealth, taste, culture, education, wit, learning, beauty?”

“Go on!  Excellent!”

“Who has everything as against my nothing! What value, Madam?”

“Why, gentle idiot, to get an answer ask a question, always.”

“I have asked it.”

“But you can not guess that I might ask one?  So, then, one answer for another, we might do—­what you Americans call some business—­eh?  Will you answer my question?”

“Ask it, then.”

“Were you married—­that other night?”

So, then, she was woman after all, and curious!  Her sudden speech came like a stab; but fortunately my dull nerves had not had time to change my face before a thought flashed into my mind.  Could I not make merchandise of my sorrow?  I pulled myself into control and looked her fair in the face.

“Madam,” I said, “look at my face and read your own answer.”

She looked, searching me, while every nerve of me tingled; but at last she shook her head.  “No,” she sighed.  “I can not yet say.”  She did not see the sweat starting on my forehead.

I raised my kerchief over my head.  “A truce, then, Madam!  Let us leave the one question against the other for a time.”

“Excellent!  I shall get my answer first, in that case, and for nothing.”

“How so?”

“I shall only watch you.  As we are here now, I were a fool, worse than you, if I could not tell whether or not you are married.  None the less, I commend you, I admire you, because you do not tell me.  If you are not, you are disappointed.  If you are, you are eager!”

“I am in any case delighted that I can interest Madam.”

“Ah, but you do!  I have not been interested, for so long!  Ah, the great heavens, how fat was Mr. Pakenham, how thin was Mr. Calhoun!  But you—­come, Monsieur, the night is long.  Tell me of yourself.  I have never before known a savage.”