Oh, marvelous! The girl must be exceedingly courteous (a rarity in one of such appealing countenance), or perhaps has simply been thrown off-guard. There is as well the odd, utterly unlikely chance that she is one of those who finds appeal in the unusual; Grantaire can hardly believe that she is such a one.

Whatever the case, he has received both words and blush (and it must be noted that she wears her blush with grace) and might even have caught the glimmer of a smile. He can hardly pull back now, nor would he. There is little that can outshine the pleasure of a passing flirtation, particularly with such a girl as this.

"And yet? Might it be that the lady is too modest to confess her own brilliance? Shrink not from such admissions, Mademoiselle, for you can no more escape the intensity of your beauty than the rose may deny its perfume or the moon its silvered beams. It does you know credit to deny what all may, nay, must behold.

"Why, I am astonished to watch these men continue about their business! How do they recall the movement of their limbs, the dull movements that carry us through life? I cannot say how the world moves on around you, for I, I have been stopped solid; and were I the world, I should cease my very rotation, rapt in ruminations on your charm."