“To make it wrong,” I returned, “we ought to see your mother coming down that path.” “Ah, my mother makes everything wrong,” she cried, attacking with a little spoon in the shape of a spade the apex of a pink ice. And then she returned to her idea of a moment before. “You must promise to tell me—to warn me in some way—whenever I strike a false note. You must give a little cough, like that—ahem!” “You’ll keep me very busy and people will think I’m in a consumption.” “Voyons,” she continued, “why have you never talked to me more? Is that a false note? Why haven’t you been ‘attentive’? That’s what American girls call it; that’s what Miss Ruck calls it.” I assured myself that our companions were out of ear-shot and that Miss Ruck was much occupied with a large vanilla cream. “Because you’re always interlaced with that young lady. There’s no getting near you.” Aurora watched her friend while the latter devoted herself to her ice. “You wonder, no doubt, why I should care for her at all. So does mamma; elle s’y perd. I don’t like her particularly; je n’en suis pas folle. But she gives me information; she tells me about her—your—everything but _my_—extraordinary country. Mamma has always tried to prevent my knowing anything about it, and I’m all the more devoured with curiosity. And then Miss Ruck’s so very fresh.” “I may not be so fresh as Miss Ruck,” I said, “but in future, when you want information, I recommend you to come to me for it.” “Ah, but our friend offers to take me there; she invites me to go back with her, to stay with her. You couldn’t do that, could you?” And my companion beautifully faced me on it. “Bon, a false note! I can see it by your face; you remind me of an outraged maître de piano.” “You overdo the character—the poor American girl,” I said. “Are you going to stay with that delightful family?” “I’ll go and stay with any one who will take me or ask me. It’s a real nostalgie. She says that in New York—in Thirty-Seventh Street near Fourth Avenue—I should have the most lovely time.” “I’ve no doubt you’d enjoy it.” “Absolute liberty to begin with.” “It seems to me you’ve a certain liberty here,” I returned. “Ah, _this_? Oh I shall pay for this. I shall be punished by mamma and lectured by Madame Galopin.” “The wife of the pasteur?” “His digne épouse. Madame Galopin, for mamma, is the incarnation of European opinion. That’s what vexes me with mamma, her thinking so much of people like Madame Galopin. Going to see Madame Galopin—mamma calls that being in European society. European society! I’m so sick of that expression; I’ve heard it since I was six years old. Who’s Madame Galopin—who the devil thinks anything of her here? She’s nobody; she’s the dreariest of frumps; she’s perfectly third-rate. If I like your America better than mamma I also know my Europe better.”