Ethel Watts Mumford

“ The admiral listened, spellbound and puzzled.
“The troubadour would have me ride upon his lavender steed, but the beast was possessed of a devil, and would not move. Then you came, most noble knight—” Margot looked into his eyes, and the commander of many galleons straightway struck his colors.
Again they proceeded in silence. The forest trees grew rarer. At the end of an open glade, they came upon the grille admitting to the enclosed gardens of La Bonbonnière, where fruit-trees spread flat against the sun-warmed walls, displaying green, unripened globes. ”

“ Margot nodded.
“That will be nice. Begin on Renaud's, will you, please?”
Montalou flushed, angrily.
“What do you mean? Has that poet been annoying you?”
“Annoying, no—not that. He's just a nuisance. I'm tired of telling him I don't want him. Then he goes and complains to the Colville. At first, she was jealous of me because he would love me, and now she's furious because I won't love him.” ”

“ D'Alencourt lost his balance, and the next instant found them both in the water, the overturned boat between them.
“Can you swim?” came his voice, anxiously.
“No,” she answered, cheerfully. “Can you?”
“No. Absurd, isn't it? I'll work my way around, and hold you on. You won't lose your grip, will you?”
“Oh, dear, no!” she laughed. “How delightfully droll! But you'd better not come on this side, too—it would pull the boat over, and make it harder to hold on. Do you think we'll drift out to sea? Do look at the oars and cushions floating down—there's a perfect string of them. ”

“ Margot cast the remnants of the lily of France upon the curling eddies of the stream. “America is a hothouse, producing wonderful exotic varieties of jeune fille. When that is not the case, it is a wind-swept plateau, where the original plant differentiates and becomes, if less intoxicating of perfume, at least extremely hardy. In that case, the American Beauty becomes a hardy bloomer. ”

“ Why, it is a foolish little colony somewhere far away, a place for Jesuits and coureurs-de-bois. I can hardly realize that I lived there and was part of it once. Isn't it wonderful how this country absorbs one? Really, don't you find me very French? Do I seem foreign?”
Roland leaned his head upon his arm, and gazed across the stream.
“You are like nothing and no one that I ever met before. I was hoping you were a real American type—I fondly dreamed, a common American type. I was planning to go to America to live. It would be the paradise of Mahomet.”
Margot dimpled. ”

“ And I take it all back; you are not sweet—you are a devil of an angel, or an angel of the devil—but not sweet. I hope no one ever rescues us, and we float on forever. We're not by any chance approaching that bank over there, are we? These eddies are the very mischief. However, we were fortunately in the middle of the channel when we turned over.”
“I'm glad it's a warm afternoon,” she remarked. “This bath is really refreshing.”
“The water has made your hair curl in a fashion ravishing,” said d'Alencourt. “I have but one wish—that the curves of this miserable boat were less. ”

“ This is an ingénue!”
“Nothing so worldly as that, I hope,” she observed, seriously.
“An ingénue!” he continued, “who dissects the heart of the most Balzacian episodes with the scalpel of a woman of forty! What is this America that produces such girls?” ”