"Why shouldn't I? If you should see him, you would understand that no one can be less dangerous than this adorer. You know how fire-proof I am; why I could spend a hundred years with such a lover, and my heart would never beat one bit the faster! To be sure, at first, when, Heaven knows how, he found me out and entered unannounced, I was extremely angry at the intrusion and received him so coldly that he remained standing at the door like a penitent and could not utter a word of the apology which he had prepared. I said things to which no one else would have submitted quietly. But he--at first he seemed utterly crushed, and then he suddenly threw himself at my feet and faltered out that he was a lost man, if I would not have compassion on him; that he had done everything to prove how honorable his intentions were; he had forced his mother, a very proud lady, to consent to receive me as her daughter-in-law; his aristocratic relatives had caused him a great deal of trouble, but he had at last succeeded in removing every obstacle from the way, and now I rejected him and refused him all hope. And then, still kneeling at my feet, he poured forth such a torrent of vows and protestations, that I really didn't know whether to laugh at or to pity him." "Toinette! And you allowed him the hope--" "I? If you think that you don't know me! When I found the torrent of words continued, all desire either to laugh or pity vanished, and I very positively and curtly declared that I had not the slightest inclination to become his wife, that if this would cause him unhappiness, I was very sorry, but that I could not accept the proposals of the first eccentric man I met, at the expense of my whole life. This was my final answer." "And he still has the effrontery to annoy you? And you were yielding enough--"