The poor dame, very much infatuated with her daughter, like any other silly mother, did not perceive the officer's lack of enthusiasm, and strove in low tones to call his attention to the infinite grace with which Fleur-de-Lys used her needle or wound her skein.
"Come, little cousin," she said to him, plucking him by the sleeve, in order to speak in his ear, "Look at her, do! see her stoop."
"Yes, truly," replied the young man, and fell back into his glacial and absent-minded silence.
A moment later, he was obliged to bend down again, and Dame Aloise said to him,-"Have you ever beheld a more gay and charming face than that of your betrothed? Can one be more white and blonde? are not her hands perfect? and that neck--does it not assume all the curves of the swan in ravishing fashion? How I envy you at times! and how happy you are to be a man, naughty libertine that you are! Is not my Fleur-de-Lys adorably beautiful, and are you not desperately in love with her?"
"Of course," he replied, still thinking of something else.
"But do say something," said Madame Aloise, suddenly giving his shoulder a push; "you have grown very timid."
We can assure our readers that timidity was neither the captain's virtue nor his defect. But he made an effort to do what was demanded of him.
"Fair cousin," he said, approaching Fleur-de-Lys, "what is the subject of this tapestry work which you are fashioning?' "Fair cousin," responded Fleur-de-Lys, in an offended tone, "I have already told you three times. 'Tis the grotto of Neptune."
It was evident that Fleur-de-Lys saw much more clearly than her mother through the captain's cold and absent-minded manner. He felt the necessity of making some conversation.
"And for whom is this Neptunerie destined?"
"For the Abbey of Saint-Antoine des Champs," answered Fleur-de-Lys, without raising her eyes.
The captain took up a corner of the tapestry.
"Who, my fair cousin, is this big gendarme, who is puffing out his cheeks to their full extent and blowing a trumpet?"
"'Tis Triton," she replied.
There was a rather pettish intonation in Fleur-de-Lys's-- laconic words. The young man understood that it was indispensable that he should whisper something in her ear, a commonplace, a gallant compliment, no matter what. Accordingly he bent down, but he could find nothing in his imagination more tender and personal than this,-"Why does your mother always wear that surcoat with armorial designs, like our grandmothers of the time of Charles VII.? Tell her, fair cousin, that 'tis no longer the fashion, and that the hinge (gond) and the laurel (laurier) embroidered on her robe give her the air of a walking mantlepiece. In truth, people no longer sit thus on their banners, I assure you."