"It will fail, my lord," was the answer bluntly spoken.
"Then we'll try something else that will succeed. I am quite resolved. Let it be as I say."
"So much for a woman's leadership," growled Dubois to Pascal as he was starting with Babillon.
"He might take another view if he'd had as much married experience as you," laughed Pascal.
"If he lives to marry her," was the gloomy response. "To think he should sacrifice a chance like this for the sake of a squeamish girl."
"Get those arms, man, and we may have yet a tough bout or two here," but Dubois shook his head discontentedly. Pascal looked after him and shrugged his shoulders, as he muttered to himself: "Your husband never sees the same light in a pair of bright eyes as your lover. Save me from marrying, say I, Pascal de la Tour."
A soft laugh broke in on his soliloquy, and he turned to find Lucette looking at him, her face severely demure but her eyes dancing with quizzical light.
"Are you then in danger, monsieur?" she asked in a tone of deep solicitude.
"Any man might well be at such short range as this," he answered, meeting her gaze and laughing. "So you heard me?"
"I heard you calling on some one else to save you from some dreadful fate, and the thought of any one in deep trouble appeals to me."
"Danger it might be and yet not deep trouble. I can well imagine there would be compensations—when I look at you. You're a born coquette, I fear, Lucette. I shall have to read you a lecture or two."
"The experience of professors in any art is always to be welcomed, monsieur."
"Do Dauban and de Cavannes agree in that? They've had a pretty fair taste of the experience, at any rate," he laughed.
