"Monsieur." He bowed to me with the profundity of a hidalgo, and trotted magnificently out of the room.
It was all so sudden that it took my breath away.
"Well I'm----" I didn't know what I was, so I stopped.

Lola Brandt broke into low laughter at my astonishment.
"That's Anastasius's way," she explained.
"But the little man surely isn't going to leave his cats and start on a wild-goose chase over Europe to find your husband ?" "He thinks he is, but I shan't let him." "I hope you won't," said I."And will you tell me why you made so hot-headed a person your confidant ?" I confess that I was wrathful.

Here had I been using the wiles of a Balkan chancery to bring the lady to my way of thinking, and here was she, to my face, making a joke of it with this caricature of a Paladin.
"My dearest friend," she replied earnestly, "don't be angry with me.
I've given the poor little man something to think of besides the death of his cat.

It will do him good.

And why shouldn't I tell him?
He's a dear old friend, and in his way was so good to me when I was unhappy.