During such an hour of liberty from the bell-tower he found the dark-eyed little mistress of the bells sorting various vegetables and singing under her breath to herself the carillon music of Josef Denyn. "Tray chick, mademoiselle," he said, with a cheerful self-assertion, to hide the embarrassment which always assailed him when he encountered her. "You know, Monsieur Burley, you should not say ’_très chic_’ to me," she said, shaking her pretty head. "It sounds a little familiar and a little common." "Oh," he exclaimed, very red. "I thought it was the thing to say." She smiled, continuing to shell the peas, then, with her sensitive and slightly flushed face still lowered, she looked at him out of her dark blue eyes. "Sometimes," she said, "young men say ’_très chic_.’ It depend on when and how one says it." "Are there times when it is all right for me to say it?" he inquired. "Yes, I think so.... How are your mules today?" "The same," he said, "--ready to bite or kick or eat their heads off. The Remount took two hundred this morning." "I saw them pass," said the girl. "I thought perhaps you also might be departing." "Without coming to say good-bye--to _you_!" he stammered. "Oh, conventions must be disregarded in time of war," she returned carelessly, continuing to shell peas. "I really thought I saw you riding away with the mules." "That man," said Burley, much hurt, "was a bow-legged driver of the Train-des-Equipages. I don’t think he resembles me." As she made no comment and expressed no contrition for her mistake, he gazed about him at the sunny garden with a depressed expression. However, this changed presently to a bright and hopeful one. "Vooz ate tray, tray belle, mademoiselle!" he asserted cheerfully. "Monsieur!" Vexed perhaps as much at her own quick blush as his abrupt eulogy, she bit her lip and looked at him with an ominously level gaze. Then, suddenly, she smiled. "Monsieur Burley, one does _not_ so express one’s self without reason, without apropos, without--without encouragement----" She blushed again, vividly. Under her wide straw hat her delicate, sensitive face and dark blue eyes were beautiful enough to inspire eulogy in any young man. "Pardon," he said, confused by her reprimand and her loveliness. "I shall hereafter only _think_ you are pretty, mademoiselle--mais je ne le dirais ploo." "That would be perhaps more--_comme il faut_, monsieur." "Ploo!" he repeated with emphasis. "Ploo jamais! Je vous jure----" "_Merci_; it is not perhaps necessary to swear quite so solemnly, monsieur." She raised her eyes from the pan, moving her small, sun-tanned hand through the heaps of green peas, filling her palm with them and idly letting them run through her slim fingers. "L’amour," he said with an effort--"how funny it is--isn’t it, mademoiselle?" "I know nothing about it," she replied with decision, and rose with her pan of peas. "Are you going, mademoiselle?" "Yes." "Have I offended you?" "No."