"_Mon pere--la voici_," announced Joyselle, with a kind of simple
pomposity eminently fitted to the occasion.
Old Joyselle finished his act of adding a domino to the long line before
him and then looked up. He was a rather small, bent old man, with
quantities of rough, curly grey hair and a petulant expression.
"Ugh!" he said rudely.
"Shake hands with him, Brigit," suggested Victor pulling his moustache
to suppress a smile. Brigit held out her hand.
"I am very glad to meet you," she said in French.
The old man stared. Then he smiled, showing one snow-white tooth. "_Tu
parles_," he murmured. Then he went back to his game.
The old woman, more polite, had risen, and was waiting her turn. She was
very tall and had a heavy moustache.
"They told me you were beautiful," she began courteously, whereupon the
old man interrupted, repeating her words but, by a change in emphasis,
casting derisive doubts on whoever "they" might be. "They _told_ me you
were _beautiful_."
Brigit burst out laughing, and leaning forward smiled at the speaker.
"Well--am I not beautiful?" she asked with an infectious chuckle of
sincere amusement.
But old Joyselle was a man of character, apparently, and not to be
beguiled.
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