"She loves Monsieur d'Argy."

"Well, if that is so, we are all right. The great misfortune with many of these poor girls is that they have never learned to love anything; they know nothing but agitations, excitements, curiosities, and fancies.

All that sort of thing runs through their heads."

"You are speaking of a Jacqueline before the duel. I can a.s.sure you that ever since yesterday, if not before, she has loved Monsieur d'Argy, who on his part for a long time--a very long time--has been in love with her."

Giselle spoke eagerly, as if she forced herself to say the words that cost her pain. Her cheeks were flushed under her veil. The Abbe, who was keen-sighted, observed these signs.

"But," continued Giselle, "if he is forced to forget her he may try to expend elsewhere the affection he feels for her; he may trouble the peace of others, while deceiving himself. He might make in the world one of those attachments--Do not fail to represent all these dangers to Madame d'Argy when you plead the cause of Jacqueline."

"Humph! You are evidently much attached, Madame, to Mademoiselle de Nailles."

"Very much, indeed," she answered, bravely, "very much attached to her, and still more to him; therefore you understand that this marriage must--absolutely must take place."

She had risen and was folding her cloak round her, looking straight into the Abbe's eyes. Small as she was, their height was almost the same; she wanted him to understand thoroughly why this marriage must take place.

He bowed. Up to that time he had not been quite sure that he had not to do with one of those wolves dressed in fleece whose appearance is as misleading as that of sheep disguised as wolves: now his opinion was settled.

"Mon Dieu! Madame," he said, "your reasons seem to me excellent--a duel to be prevented, a son to be kept by the side of his sick mother, two young people who love each other to be married, the saving, possibly, of two souls--"

"Say three souls, Monsieur l'Abbe!"

He did not ask whose was the third, nor even why she had insisted that this delicate commission must be executed that same day. He only bowed when she said again: "At four o'clock: Madame d'Argy will be prepared to see you. Thank you, Monsieur l'Abbe." And then, as she descended the staircase, he bestowed upon her silently his most earnest benediction, before returning to the cold cutlet that was on his breakfast table.

Giselle did not breakfast much better than he. In truth, M. de Talbrun being absent, she sat looking at her son, who was eating with a good appet.i.te, while she drank only a cup of tea; after which, she dressed herself, with more than usual care, hiding by rice-powder the trace of recent tears on her complexion, and arranging her fair hair in the way that was most becoming to her, under a charming little bonnet covered with gold net-work which corresponded with the embroidery on an entirely new costume.

When she went into the dining-room Enguerrand, who was there with his nurse finishing his dessert, cried out: "Oh! mamma, how pretty you are!"

which went to her heart. She kissed him two or three times--one kiss after another.

"I try to be pretty for your sake, my darling."

"Will you take me with you?"

"No, but I will come back for you, and take you out."

She walked a few steps, and then turned to give him such a kiss as astonished him, for he said:

"Is it really going to be long?"

"What?"

"Before you come back? You kiss me as if you were going for a long time, far away."

"I kissed you to give myself courage."

Enguerrand, who, when he had a hard lesson to learn, always did the same thing, appeared to understand her.

"You are going to do some thing you don't like."

"Yes, but I have to do it, because you see it is my duty."

"Do grown people have duties?"

"Even more than children."

"But it isn't your duty to write a copy--your writing is so pretty. Oh!

that's what I hate most. And you always say it is my duty to write my copy. I'll go and do it while you do your duty. So that will seem as if we were both together doing something we don't like--won't it, mamma?"

She kissed him again, even more pa.s.sionately.

"We shall be always together, we two, my love!"

This word love struck the little ear of Enguerrand as having a new accent, a new meaning, and, boy-like, he tried to turn this excess of tenderness to advantage.

"Since you love me so much, will you take me to see the puppet-show?"

"Anywhere you like--when I come back. Goodby."

CHAPTER XX. A CHIVALROUS SOUL

Madame D'Argy sat knitting by the window in Fred's chamber, with that resigned but saddened air that mothers wear when they are occupied in repairing the consequences of some rash folly. Fred had seen her in his boyhood knitting in the same way with the same, look on her face, when he had been thrown from his pony, or had fallen from his velocipede. He himself looked ill at ease and worried, as he lay on a sofa with his arm in a sling. He was yawning and counting the hours. From time to time his mother glanced at him. Her look was curious, and anxious, and loving, all at the same time. He pretended to be asleep. He did not like to see her watching him. His handsome masculine face, tanned that pale brown which tropical climates give to fair complexions, looked odd as it rose above a light-blue cape, a very feminine garment which, as it had no sleeves, had been tied round his neck to keep him from being cold. He felt himself, with some impatience, at the mercy of the most tender, but the most sharp-eyed of nurses, a prisoner to her devotion, and made conscious of her power every moment. Her attentions worried him; he knew that they all meant "It is your own fault, my poor boy, that you are in this state, and that your mother is so unhappy." He felt it. He knew as well as if she had spoken that she was asking him to return to reason, to marry, without more delay, their little neighbor in Normandy, Mademoiselle d'Argeville, a niece of M. Martel, whom he persisted in not thinking of as a wife, always calling her a "cider apple," in allusion to her red cheeks.

A servant came in, and said to Madame d'Argy that Madame de Talbrun was in the salon.

"I am coming," she said, rolling up her knitting.

But Fred suddenly woke up:

"Why not ask her to come here?"

"Very good," said his mother, with hesitation. She was distracted between her various anxieties; exasperated against the fatal influence of Jacqueline, alarmed by the increasing intimacy with Giselle, desirous that all such complications should be put an end to by his marriage, but terribly afraid that her "cider apple" would not be sufficient to accomplish it.

"Beg Madame de Talbrun to come in here," she said, repeating the order after her son; but she settled herself in her chair with an air more patient, more resigned than ever, and her lips were firmly closed.

Giselle entered in her charming new gown, and Fred's first words, like those of Enguerrand, were: "How pretty you are! It is charity," he added, smiling, "to present such a spectacle to the eyes of a sick man; it is enough to set him up again."

"Isn't it?" said Giselle, kissing Madame d'Argy on the forehead. The poor mother had resumed her knitting with a sigh, hardly glancing at the pretty walking-costume, nor at the bonnet with its network of gold.

"Isn't it pretty?" repeated Giselle. "I am delighted with this costume.

It is made after one of Rejane's. Oscar fell in love with it at a first representation of a vaudeville, and he gave me over into the hands of the same dressmaker, who indeed was named in the play. That kind of advertising seems very effective."

She went on chattering thus to put off what she had really come to say.

Her heart was beating so fast that its throbs could be seen under the embroidered front of the bodice which fitted her so smoothly. She wondered how Madame d'Argy would receive the suggestion she was about to make.

She went on: "I dressed myself in my best to-day because I am so happy."