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“You!” he exclaimed. “Why I never heard a word of all this! What an idea, to make a baby like you his messenger, instead of asking me!”

“Well, he thought you’d laugh at him,” Marguerite frankly replied.

“He did, eh? Jolly right he was, too, come to think of it. For that’s exactly what I would have done, I dare say. A man like him to throw himself away for the sake of a pretty minx’s bright eyes, and that, mind you, without knowing anything in particular about her.”

“He was right to mistrust you, you see,” she mocked.

“Yes, I see, but it isn’t too late. I promise you that I’ll do my laughing yet. Indeed, ‘Gamin,’ I hope you’re going to reconsider that verdict about not going to Paris. It would annoy me very much to miss the fun.”

For a minute Marguerite did not reply. Another brusque bend in the road lent her fresh reasons for not attending, but when she spoke it was in her usual tone of semi-banter.

“My dear papa!” she said. “If you are bent on amusement, amusement you must have! It is not for an old lady like myself to stand in the way of your giddy doings.”