"Good
heavens!" she exclaimed. "Who is that in the next room?"
"A mad Englishman."
"An Englishman?"
"Compose yourself, my angel. I will quiet him."
The lamentable voice called out on me again, "Rigobert! Rigobert!"
My fair friend caught me by the arm. "Who is he?" she cried. "What is his
name?"
Something in her face struck me as she put that question. A spasm of
jealousy shook me to the soul. "You know him?" I said.
"His name!" she vehemently repeated; "his name!"
"Francis," I answered.
"Francis--_what_?"
I shrugged my shoulders. I could neither remember nor pronounce the
barbarous English surname. I could only tell her it began with an "R."
She dropped back into the chair. Was she going to faint? No: she
recovered, and more than recovered, her lost color. Her eyes flashed
superbly. What did it mean? Profoundly as I understand women in general, I
was puzzled by _this_ woman!
"You know him?" I repeated.
She laughed at me. "What nonsense! How should I know him? Go and quiet the
wretch."
My looking-glass was near. One glance at it satisfied me that no woman in
her senses could prefer the Englishman to Me. I recovered my self-respect.
I hastened to the Englishman's bedside.
The moment I appeared he pointed eagerly toward my room. He overwhelmed me
with a torrent of words in his own language.
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