You are handsome; with un air distingue; reech." I shook my head, to show that I could not lay claim to being a millionaire, in addition to my other virtues.
"No, not reech, but clevaire; and you will be reech bye-bye! I see not why ze ladees should not leesten to you, mon ami, he ?--But, if she does note; why, courage! Dere are many odere ladees beautifool also in England; and, yet, if you feels your loss mooch, like myselfs with ma perfide Marie, why you can go aways and be console, as I!" His words encouraged me:--and, my face imperceptibly brightened.
"Ah, ha! dat is bettaire," he said--"I likes you, Meestaire Lorton; and it does me pain to sees you at deespair like dese! Cheer oop; and all will be raite, as our good friend, ze vicaire, all-ways tells to us.

We will go and sees him now!" He took my unresisting arm, and carried me off to the vicarage; changing the conversation as we went along, and gradually instilling fresh hope into my heart.
I dare say you think it was very idiotical on my part, thus to bewail my grief to another person; and allow a few empty words to change the current of my feelings?
But then, you must recollect, that I would not have comported myself in this way with a brother Englishman.
If Horner had told me of _his_ woes, for example, similarly as I told mine, or let them be drawn out of me by Monsieur Parole, I confess I would have been much more likely to have laughed at, than sympathised with him.
A Frenchman, however, is naturally more sentimental than any of ourselves.

He looks seriously and considerately on things which we make light of.
Besides, in my then cut-throat mood, I was longing for sympathy; and would have made a confidante of any one offering for the post--barring Lady Dasher or Miss Spight--neither of whom would I have chosen as a depository were I anxious to give my last dying speech and confession to the world; although, they would probably cause the same to be circulated fast enough--judging by their habit in regard to that sort of private information respecting the delicate concerns of other people which is passed on from hand to hand "in strict confidence, mind!" and which is not to be told to any one else "for the world!" Monsieur Parole's story was a good lesson to me.
I saw that he who had had grief as great, and greater than mine, for I knew that Min loved me and was constant--had concealed it so that none who looked on his round merry face, would have supposed him capable of a deep emotion; while, I, on the contrary, had paraded my little anxieties, like a fool! He also taught me determination; for, I resolved now, that, on the first opportunity I had, I would speak to my darling again, and have my fate settled, without more delay--for good or ill, as the case might be.
I would not remain in suspense any longer.
Within a week, this wished-for opportunity came.
Some mutual friends, to whom, indeed, Min had been the original means of my introduction--they living without the orbit of the Saint Canon circle--asked me to a large evening party that they gave late in the season.
There, I met my darling, as I hoped--unaccompanied by her mother, which I had _not_ imagined would happen; consequently, my chances for speaking to Min would be all the more favourable.
There was so general a crush of people; that, although the rooms were large and there were many nice little retreats for tete-a-tete conversation, in balconies that were covered in like marquees and snug conservatories, besides the stair landings--those last "refuges for the destitute" who might desire retirement--I had to put off my purpose until evening wore on to such a late hour, that I thought I would not be able to speak to my darling at all! After midnight, however, my opportunity came.
First getting rid of a horrible person, who would persist in following Min about under the false pretence that his name was on her card for several of the after-supper dances--an assertion _I_ knew to be ridiculously unfounded; for, I had taken care to place my own name down for as many as Min would give me, and, all the latter ones I had appropriated also without asking her permission, thinking that when that happy time arrived, she would not be very hard on me for my presumption; nor was she.
Extinguishing the interloper--some people have such blindness of mental vision, that they never can see when they are not wanted!--I managed at length to open proceedings.
It was while in a quadrille that I began referring to the agonised state of my mind, and explained the mental suffering I then was experiencing.
Min listened attentively, as far as she heard, a warm flush on her dear face and a light sparkling in the deep grey eyes; but, I would defy any lover to plead his cause with due effect in that mazy old cotillon dance, which a love of French nomenclature in the early part of the century, taught us to style "quadrille." How can you inform the object of your passion that you adore her, with any becoming effusion of sentiment, when you are chassez-ing and balancez-ing like a human teetotum?
How, breathe the words of love; when, ere you have completed your avowal, you have to make a fool of yourself in the "Cavalier seul," the cynosure of six different pairs of eyes besides those of the girl of your heart?
How, tone your voice, sweetly attuned though it may be to Venusian accents, when, one moment, it may be inaudible to her whom you address, through the rampagious gallopading and ladies-chaining of excited quadrillers; and, the next, be so raised in pitch, from the sudden hush that falls on band and dancers alike, between the figures, that your opposite vis-a-vis, and the neighbouring side couples, can hear every syllable of your frantic declaration--much to their amusement and your discomfiture?
You cannot do it, I say.
No, not if you were a Talleyrand in love matters; and, so completely versed in the pathology of the "fitful fever," as to be able to diagnose it at a glance; besides nursing the patient through all the several stages of the disease--watching every symptom, anticipating each change, bringing the "case," finally, to a favourable issue! No, sir, or madam, or mademoiselle, as the case may be; you cannot do it--not in a quadrille, at all events, or I will;--but, no, I won't bet:--it is wrong to do so, Min told me! Presently, on the music stopping, I led her to a seat in a quiet corner.
"Here"-- thought I--"I shall be able to have you to myself without fear of interruption!" I commenced my tale again; but, Min, evidently, did not wish to come to any decision now.

She wanted to let matters remain as they were.
I could see this readily, by the way in which she tried to put me off, changing the conversation whenever I got on to the forbidden ground, and suggesting various irrelevant queries on my endeavouring again to chain her wilfully-erratic attention down to the one topic that I only thought worthy of interest.
The feminine mind, I believe, delights in uncertainty.
Girls are not half so anxious to have their lovers "declare themselves," as some ill-natured people would have us think.

They much prefer holding on in delightful doubt--that pleasant "he-would-and-she- wouldn't" pastime that precedes a regular engagement or undoubted dismissal--just as a playful mouser sports with its victim, long after the trembling little beast has lost its small portion of life; pretending that it is yet alive and essaying to escape, when pussy knows right well that poor mousey's fate is sealed, as far as any further struggles on its part are concerned.
A man, on the contrary, abhors suspense.
It is not business-like, you know.
He much desiderates a plain answer to a plain exposition of fact or fancy--even when it takes the form of that excruciating little monosyllable "no." Those diminutive arts and petty trickeries of feigned resistance, with which our "angels without wings" strive to delay the surrender of the maiden-citadels of their hearts, are but vexatious obstacles to his legitimate triumph.