Gurnard wheeled and fixed me critically with his eye-glass.

I took de Mersch a little apart, into a solitude of palm branches, and began to speak before he had asked me my errand.
"You must understand that I would not interfere without a good deal of provocation," I was saying, when he cut me short, speaking in a thick, jovial voice.
"Oh, we will understand that, my good Granger, and then ..." "It is about my sister," I said--"you--you go too far.

I must ask you, as a gentleman, to cease persecuting her." He answered "The devil!" and then: "If I do not---- ?" It was evident in his voice, in his manner, that the man was a little--well, _gris_.

"If you do not," I said, "I shall forbid her to see you and I shall ..." "Oh, oh!" he interjected with the intonation of a reveller at a farce.
"We are at that--we are the excellent brother." He paused, and then added: "Well, go to the devil, you and your forbidding." He spoke with the greatest good humour.
"I am in earnest," I said; "very much in earnest.

The thing has gone too far, and even for your own sake, you had better ..." He said "Ah, ah!" in the tone of his "Oh, oh!" "She is no friend to you," I struggled on, "she is playing with you for her own purposes; you will ..." He swayed a little on his feet and said: "Bravo ...