"Oh, you funny, jealous old Laurent!" she said breathlessly. Then seeing that the young man still looked morose and wrathful, she went on, with a quick turn to seriousness: "You are childish, my dear cousin. Let me begin by reminding you that your jealousy is not only unjustifiable but singularly out of place. The interests of His Majesty being at stake, it behoves us all to sharpen our wits by mature reflection, rather than to dull them by senseless outbursts of temper. _Ma tante_ declared just now that M. de Maurel's wealth and influence would be of inestimable value to His Majesty, and yet owned that she was at her wits' ends how to bring him back repentant or reconciled to Courson. Well, where _ma tante_ owns to having failed, I still believe in success; and though father says that I am too young to turn a grave situation over in my mind, I am convinced that I can turn the present one to our advantage." "But how, my dear child?" sighed Madame dejectedly, "how?" "I don't know yet," rejoined Fernande, "but I would dearly love to try." "To try and do what?" queried Laurent, who was by no means mollified. "To make the bear dance to my piping," replied Fernande archly. "That is what I could never allow." "If _ma tante_ grant me leave," quoth Fernande dryly, "you, my dear cousin, will not be asked to give your consent." "Fernande!" exclaimed the young man, in a tone of passionate reproach. "There! there!" she said gently, "do not look so glum. It was you, remember, who talked of sowing seeds of hope in the impressionable field of M. de Maurel's fancy.... Father and _tante_ Denise spoke of the necessity of making friends with that untamed bear, and I...." "Yes? You, Fernande?" queried Laurent, his glowering eyes fixed moodily upon the exquisite face that smiled so tantalizingly upon him. "I," she said lightly, "have no other wish save to bring back that same untamed bear to heel, and to make him pay his respects to _ma tante_; to bring him back to Courson, not once but often and willingly, until we are all the best of friends." Then as her sally was greeted by a shrug of the shoulders from her father, a sigh of despondency from her aunt and a further scowl from Laurent, she continued more earnestly: "Surely, if M. de Maurel's friendship is so important to the interests of His Majesty as _ma tante_ and father think, it is worth while making an effort to gain it. No harm can come in trying. If I fail we shall be no worse off than we are now." "You will fail, my dear," concluded Mme. la Marquise, with her usual authoritative decision. "You will fail. No de Maurel has yet succumbed to a woman's charm unless interest or obstinacy prepared him for the fall."