You would have been the better for an English
education, Jean."
"A canal in March!" Jean grunted. "You will end badly."
Henri looked longingly at the water.
"Had I a dry towel," he said, "I would go in again."
Jean looked at him with his one eye.
"You would be prettier without those scars," he observed. But in his
heart he prayed that there might be no others added to them, that
nothing might mar or destroy that bright and youthful body.
"_Depechez-vous! Vous sommes presses_!" he added.
But Henri was minded to play. He girded himself with the towel and
struck an attitude.
"The Russian ballet, Jean!" he said, and capering madly sent Jean
into deep grumbles of laughter by his burlesque.
"I must have exercise," Henri said at last when, breathless and with
flying hair, he began to dress. "That, too, is my English schooling. If
you, Jean--"
"To the devil with your English schooling!" Jean remonstrated.
Henri sobered quickly after that. The exhilaration of his cold plunge
was over.
"The American lady?" he asked. "She is all right?"
"She is worried. There is not enough money."
Henri frowned.
"And I have nothing!"
This opened up an old wound with Jean.
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