“This is, without exception, the most unintelligent thing you have said ever since I have known you.  You may understand a lot about running contraband and about the minds of a certain class of people, but as to Rose’s mind let me tell you that in comparison with hers yours is absolutely infantile, my adventurous friend.  It would be contemptible if it weren’t so—­what shall I call it?—­ babyish.  You ought to be slapped and put to bed.”  There was an extraordinary earnestness in her tone and when she ceased I listened yet to the seductive inflexions of her voice, that no matter in what mood she spoke seemed only fit for tenderness and love.  And I thought suddenly of Azzolati being ordered to take himself off from her presence for ever, in that voice the very anger of which seemed to twine itself gently round one’s heart.  No wonder the poor wretch could not forget the scene and couldn’t restrain his tears on the plain of Rambouillet.  My moods of resentment against Rita, hot as they were, had no more duration than a blaze of straw.  So I only said: 

“Much you know about the management of children.”  The corners of her lips stirred quaintly; her animosity, especially when provoked by a personal attack upon herself, was always tinged by a sort of wistful humour of the most disarming kind.

“Come, amigo George, let us leave poor Rose alone.  You had better tell me what you heard from the lips of the charming old lady.  Perfection, isn’t she?  I have never seen her in my life, though she says she has seen me several times.  But she has written to me on three separate occasions and every time I answered her as if I were writing to a queen.  Amigo George, how does one write to a queen?  How should a goatherd that could have been mistress of a king, how should she write to an old queen from very far away; from over the sea?”

“I will ask you as I have asked the old queen:  why do you tell me all this, Dona Rita?”

“To discover what’s in your mind,” she said, a little impatiently.

“If you don’t know that yet!” I exclaimed under my breath.

“No, not in your mind.  Can any one ever tell what is in a man’s mind?  But I see you won’t tell.”

“What’s the good?  You have written to her before, I understand.  Do you think of continuing the correspondence?”

“Who knows?” she said in a profound tone.  “She is the only woman that ever wrote to me.  I returned her three letters to her with my last answer, explaining humbly that I preferred her to burn them herself.  And I thought that would be the end of it.  But an occasion may still arise.”

“Oh, if an occasion arises,” I said, trying to control my rage, “you may be able to begin your letter by the words ‘Chere Maman.’”

The cigarette box, which she had taken up without removing her eyes from me, flew out of her hand and opening in mid-air scattered cigarettes for quite a surprising distance all over the room.  I got up at once and wandered off picking them up industriously.  Dona Rita’s voice behind me said indifferently: