"I think you're laughing at me," the young man murmured, dropping back in his chair and feeling his small moustache. "I didn't expect that of you, Madame Merle."
She shook her head calmly, like a person who saw things as she saw them. "You don't do me justice. I think your conduct in excellent taste and the best you could adopt. Yes, that's what I think."
"I wouldn't agitate her--only to agitate her; I love her too much for that," said Ned Rosier.
"I'm glad, after all, that you've told me," Madame Merle went on. "Leave it to me a little; I think I can help you."
"I said you were the person to come to!" her visitor cried with prompt elation.
"You were very clever," Madame Merle returned more dryly. "When I say I can help you I mean once assuming your cause to be good. Let us think a little if it is."
"I'm awfully decent, you know," said Rosier earnestly. "I won't say I've no faults, but I'll say I've no vices."
"All that's negative, and it always depends, also, on what people call vices. What's the positive side? What's the virtuous? What have you got besides your Spanish lace and your Dresden teacups?"
"I've a comfortable little fortune--about forty thousand francs a year. With the talent I have for arranging, we can live beautifully on such an income."
"Beautifully, no. Sufficiently, yes. Even that depends on where you live."
"Well, in Paris. I would undertake it in Paris."
Madame Merle's mouth rose to the left. "It wouldn't be famous; you'd have to make use of the teacups, and they'd get broken."
"We don't want to be famous. If Miss Osmond should have everything pretty it would be enough. When one's as pretty as she one can afford--well, quite cheap faience. She ought never to wear anything but muslin--without the sprig," said Rosier reflectively.
"Wouldn't you even allow her the sprig? She'd be much obliged to you at any rate for that theory."
"It's the correct one, I assure you; and I'm sure she'd enter into it. She understands all that; that's why I love her."
"She's a very good little girl, and most tidy--also extremely graceful. But her father, to the best of my belief, can give her nothing."
Rosier scarce demurred. "I don't in the least desire that he should. But I may remark, all the same, that he lives like a rich man."