And he knows quite as well that I'm very difficult to place."

"You'll be difficult, my dear, if we lose you," Mme. de Brecourt
laughed, "to replace!"

"Always at any rate to find a wife for. I'm neither fish nor flesh. I've
no country, no career, no future; I offer nothing; I bring nothing. What
position under the sun do I confer? There's a fatuity in our talking as
if we could make grand terms. You and the others are well enough: qui
prend mari prend pays, and you've names about which your husbands take a
great stand. But papa and I--I ask you!"

"As a family nous sommes tres-bien," said Mme. de Brecourt. "You know
what we are--it doesn't need any explanation. We're as good as anything
there is and have always been thought so. You might do anything you
like."

"Well, I shall never like to marry--when it comes to that--a
Frenchwoman."

"Thank you, my dear"--and Mme. de Brecourt tossed her head.

"No sister of mine's really French," returned the young man.

"No brother of mine's really mad. Marry whomever you like," Susan
went on; "only let her be the best of her kind. Let her be at least a
gentlewoman. Trust me, I've studied life. That's the only thing that's
safe."

"Francie's the equal of the first lady in the land."

"With that sister--with that hat? Never--never!"

"What's the matter with her hat?"

"The sister's told a story. It was a document--it described them, it
classed them. And such a PATOIS as they speak!"

"My dear, her English is quite as good as yours. You don't even know how
bad yours is," the young man went on with assurance.

"Well, I don't say 'Parus' and I never asked an Englishman to marry me.
You know what our feelings are," his companion as ardently pursued; "our
convictions, our susceptibilities. We may be wrong, we may be hollow, we
may be pretentious, we mayn't be able to say on what it all rests; but
there we are, and the fact's insurmountable. It's simply impossible for
us to live with vulgar people. It's a defect, no doubt; it's an immense
inconvenience, and in the days we live in it's sadly against one's
interest. But we're made like that and we must understand ourselves.
It's of the very essence of our nature, and of yours exactly as much as
of mine or of that of the others. Don't make a mistake about it--you'll
prepare for yourself a bitter future. I know what becomes of us. We
suffer, we go through tortures, we die!"

The accent of passionate prophecy was in this lady's