“Monsieur, I am frightened.” “What, with me for thy Quixote! I have conquered windmills before now. There--that is to be a good child. Do you find it hard to understand my chatter?” “Monsieur, on the contrary, is an adept at our language.” “This is nothing to how I speak it when I have a cold. Still, do you know, I have never quite got over the feeling that it is very clever of a Frenchman to talk French. ‘And so it is,’ Théroigne would say, but you will not. Nicette, have you ever heard speak of the Club of Nature’s Gentry? What a question, is it not? But I like to hear you laugh like little bells.” “Monsieur, it is a very dull club.” “Which is the reason you are not a member?” “A member! oh, _mon Dieu_! that is not my notion of enjoyment.” “Great heaven! Here is an astonishing shift of the point of view.” “How, monsieur?” “Never mind. So, freedom of speech is not to your fancy?” “It is not freedom, but an excuse for silly licence. Those clowns and the grotesque small Boppard--it is to discuss wine, not politics, that they assemble. A full mug is the only challenge they invite, and the larger the measure, the greater that of their courage. But they talk so much into empty pots that their voices sound very big to them.” “Not Boppard, mademoiselle. He at least hath this justification--that he is a poet.” “Has monsieur discovered it, then? Monsieur is cleverer than all Méricourt. We must make monsieur the student a crown of vine leaves.” “Nicette, dost thou think I will suffer a pullet to cackle at me? What, then, if not a poet?” “But a maker of charades impossible to interpret, by monsieur’s permission.” “My permission, you jade! Here is the measure of _your_ courage, I think. And have you no fear that I shall make M. de St Denys acquainted with your opinion of his club?” “None, monsieur.” The thunder rolled again. The girl, starting and clasping her hands, cried-- “Monsieur, let me come from the window! Oh, monsieur, let me, and I will light a blest candle!” “A little longer--just a little longer. I foresee a darkness presently, and then, lest my Madonna be blotted from my sight, the candle shall burn.” The girl looked out fearfully at the advancing van of the storm. It was still brilliant sunshine in the garden, but with an effect as if the outposts of noon were falling back upon their centre, already half-demoralised in prospect of an overwhelming charge. The wind, too, beginning to move like that that precedes an avalanche, was scouting through the shrubberies with a distant noise of innumerable tramping feet; and the fitful moaning of the horn rose to a prolonged scream, that drew upon the heart with a point of indescribable anguish. “Why, however,” said Ned, “have you no apprehension that I shall tell tales to M. de St Denys?” “I said I had no fear, monsieur.” “Would he not resent this so unflattering opinion of his satellites?”