And he left the room.

Brigit's temper was very violent, but she had seen in his set face signs of one much worse than her own, and, with the strange unexpectedness that seemed to characterise the man, his last move was as fully that of a gentleman as his trick with the Wedding March had been shocking.

He was her host, and—he had left her rather than forget that fact.

For the first time in her life she was utterly at a loss. What should she do?

She was still standing where he had left her when Madame Joyselle came in, perfectly serene, and closed the door.

"What is the matter?" she asked calmly, sitting down and folding her hands.

"I—M. Joyselle—hurt one of my friends—he was—rude. And then——"

"C'est ça. And then you were rude. Never mind, he will not think of it again, and neither must you."

Brigit was silent, and stood looking at le Conquérant. She had been impolite, and Joyselle's discourtesy was, after all, more like a bit of schoolboy malice than the deliberate insult of a grown man. And his dignified rebuke to her had set her at once on the plane of a naughty child.

Were they both grown up, or both children? Or was he grown and she a child, or was she a grown-up and he a child? It was very puzzling and very absurd. She wanted to rage and she wanted to laugh.

She laughed. Because as she turned towards the disinterested spectator on the sofa, Joyselle came in, his face bearing such a reflection of the expression she felt to be in her own that she could not resist.

"Bon. It is laugh, then?" he cried, kissing her hands. "It appears Belle-Ange has a temper, too! Let us forget all about it. Félicité, my dear, bring us Hydromel, and we will drink forgetfulness." He opened the door of the cage, and William the Conqueror came mincing out, waddling on his inturned toes like some fat, velvet-clad dowager.

Hydromel is a Norman liqueur, thick and cloying. Brigit loathed it, but could not resist Joyselle, who, the parrot on his left wrist, poured the sweet stuff into little glasses and handed one to her.

"Item: forget that we both have bad tempers," he said, striking his glass against hers. "Item; remember that we are both good in our 

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