"Your scientific curiosity seems to be almost as great as your fear of
the insect creation. But, really, it is quite a harmless little
fellow. See!" and he pointed to a steel beetle set with a view to
ornamental effect in the centre of a little rosette of ribbons.
"Oh, shameless!" exclaimed the young girl, sinking her lily-white face
again among the abundant waves of her hair.
"Yes, I daresay he is ashamed enough to think that he isn't alive when
he sees that you regret it so much."
It is very annoying to be obliged to laugh when one has just made up
one's mind to be very angry; but Mademoiselle DeBerczy, with all her
haughtiness, was endowed with a sense of humour; so it was with only a
weak show of reproachful indignation that she at last threw back her
head and exclaimed:
"How could you--when I have such a horror of every sort of creeping
thing--and you knew what it was all the time!"
"Oh, excuse me, I did not know--that is, I wasn't positive. At a
distance I thought it was some sort of a big fly--a blue-bottle. Now I
see it is a blue beetle."
The young lady deigned no reply.
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