"Do you want me to take it off then?" asked Fifi airily; but Louis was already behind the screen.
"Aunt," he called out sternly, "kindly let me know when Mademoiselle Chiaramonti has retired."
"I can not," responded Madame Bourcet, briefly, "for I shall myself retire." And Madame Bourcet marched away to her own room.
"Louis," said a timid, tender little voice, "don't you think this gown more suitable to wear than the yellow brocade when we go to pay our visit of ceremony to the Holy Father?"
Louis Bourcet was near choking with wrath at this. What right had she to call him Louis? He had never asked her to do so—their engagement was not even formally announced; he had never spoken to her or of her except as Mademoiselle Chiaramonti. And that gown to go visiting the Holy Father!
"Mademoiselle," replied Louis in a voice of thunder, still from behind the screen, "I consider that gown wholly improper for you to appear before any one in, myself included."
"Just come and take a look at it," pleaded Fifi.
