"But you've paid your score
with the orchids. If you have one or two more pretty speeches like
that in stock, I might linger for a while."
"I'm afraid I'm all out of those," he returned. "But," he added
desperately, "there's the hexagonal scarab beetle. He's awfully
queer and of much older family even than Mr. Fitzwhizzle's. It is
the hexagonal scarab's habit when dis--"
"We have an encyclopaedia of our own at home," she interrupted
coldly. "I didn't climb this mountain to talk about beetles."
"Well, I'll talk some more about you, if you'll give me a little
time to think."
"I think you are very impertinent. I don't wish to talk about
myself. Just because I asked your advice in my difficulties, you
assume that I'm a little egoist--"
"Oh, please don't--"
"Don't interrupt. I'm very much offended, and I'm glad we are
never going to meet. Just as I was beginning to like you, too,"
she added, with malice. "Good-bye!"
"Good-bye," he answered mournfully.
But his attentive ears failed to discern the sound of departing
footsteps. The breeze whispered in the tree-tops. A sulphur-yellow
bird, of French extraction, perched in a flowering bush,
insistently demanded: "Qu'est-ce qu'il dit? Qu'est-ce qu'il dit?"
--What's he say? WHAT'S he say?--over and over again, becoming
quite wrathful because neither he nor any one else offered the
slightest reply or explanation.
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