absorbed in reading by moonlight)—"Monsieur, supper is served."
This was said in quite a different voice to that in which she had been bandying phrases with Mr. Hunsden—not so short, graver and softer.
"Frances, what do you mean by preparing supper; we had no intention of staying."
"Ah, monsieur, but you have stayed, and supper is prepared; you have only the alternative of eating it."
The meal was a foreign one of course; it consisted in two small but tasty dishes of meat prepared with skill and served with nicety; a salad and "fromage françois," completed it. The business of eating interposed a brief truce between the belligerents, but no sooner was supper disposed of than they were at it again. The fresh subject of dispute ran on the spirit of religious intolerance which Mr. Hunsden affirmed to exist strongly in Switzerland, notwithstanding the professed attachment of the Swiss to freedom. Here Frances had
