Dorothy surveyed him with a contemptuous wonder, over which her sense
of the ludicrous was slowly gaining the mastery; Elsie stared at him.
At last he ended the impassioned description of his emotions with a yet
more impassioned appeal to Dorothy to fly with him to a far-off shore
forever shining with the golden light of love; and Dorothy laughed a
gentle laugh of pure amusement.
Count Sigismond flushed purpler; his eyes stood well out of his head;
he drew himself up with a superb air--a little spoiled by a wince as
his left boot deftly reminded him that he was wearing it, and cried,
"Ha! You laugh! You laugh at Sigismond de Puy-de-Dome! Mon Dieu!
You shall learn!" And with a sudden spring he grabbed at her.
She jerked aside, sprang up, and away from him. But he was between her
and the exit from the dell; he crouched with the impressive
deliberation of a villain in a melodrama for another spring, and Elsie
screamed, "Tinker! Tinker!"
Count Sigismond heard a rustling in the bushes above, and looked up to
see them parted by an angel child, in white ducks, bearing a bunch of
lilies in his hand, who gazed at him with a serious, almost pained
face, and leapt lightly down.
With a "Pah! Imbecile!" addressed to himself for delaying, the Count
sprang towards Dorothy, was conscious of a swift white streak, and the
head of the angel child, impelled by wiry muscles and a weight of
seventy-six pounds, smote as a battering ram upon the first and second
buttons of his waistcoat.
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