And in an excited voice she repeated:

"A double puff of blue velvet, with wristlets of Venetian point."

All of a sudden the brakes sc.r.a.ped, and the train came sharply to a stop. One heard the cry of "Macon! Macon!"

"Macon already!" said Martha.

That "_already_" rang delightfully in Raoul's ears. There was much in that _already_. Raoul profited by the five minutes' stop to complete and fix his little sketch, which was slightly jolted; and he did not notice that his young brother-in-law had been sent out with a despatch to the telegraph-office. The despatch had been secretly written by Mme. Derame, and had, too, been directed to the Old Club.

The train started--4.11. Raoul had not thought to get down to see if under the railing there was not a despatch addressed to him. There was one, which was to remain eternally at Macon. The telegram contained these words: "Return; no longer question of Antwerp marriage."

The train ran on and on, and now there was question of another dress--a silk dress, light pink, with a large jabot of lace down the front. Raoul literally dazzled Martha by his inexhaustible fertility of wise expressions and technical terms.

While the express pa.s.sed the Romaneche station (4.32) father Chamblard came into the Old Club, went into the card-room, and met father Derame.

Piquet? With pleasure. So there they sat, face to face. There were there eight or ten card-tables--piquet, bezique, whist, etc. The works were in full blast. First game, and papa Derame is rubiconed; the second game was going to begin when a footman arrives with a despatch for M.

Chamblard.

"Will you excuse me?"

"Certainly."

He reads, he becomes red; he rereads, and he gets scarlet.

It was Raoul's brilliant telegram from Dijon:

"Dear father, I shall not go. Most extraordinary meeting. Your Number Three--yes, your Number Three--in the train with her mother, and I wouldn't see her. Ah! if I had known. Strike while the iron's hot; I'm striking it, strike it too. M. D. must be at the club, speak to him at once; tell him that I left to avoid marrying an ugly woman; that I only wish to make a love-match; that I am head-over-heels in love with his daughter. We shall all be to-night at Ma.r.s.eilles, Hotel de Noailles. Get M. D. to back me up by telegraph to Mme. D. I will talk with you to-morrow over the telephone. I am writing my telegram in the dining-car. At this moment she is nibbling nuts--charming, she is charming! She fell into my arms on the platform. Till to-morrow at the telephone, nine o'clock."

M. Chamblard's agitation did not escape M. Derame.

"Is it a serious matter?" he asked.

"Yes."

"We can stop if you wish."

"Yes; but first of all, did Mme. and Mlle. Derame leave here this morning on the express for Ma.r.s.eilles?"

"Yes, at 9.55. Why do you ask that? Has there been any accident?"

"No, no accident; it can't be called that; on the contrary. Come, come into the little parlor."

He told him everything, showed him the despatch, gave him certain necessary explanations about the words, such as Number Three. And there they were, choking, delighted--both the father of the young man and the father of the young girl. What luck, what a providential meeting!

"But you told me that your son didn't wish to marry."

"He didn't wish to, but he has seen your daughter, and now he wishes to.

Come, hurry up and send a telegram to Ma.r.s.eilles to Mme. Derame."

"But she will be thunderstruck when I present to her a son-in-law by telegraph."

Return of the footman. It was a despatch for M. Derame. He opens it.

"It's from my wife, from Macon, 2.15."

"Good," says M. Chamblard; "all goes well, very well."

"Very disturbed. Met in the train the son of M. C., of Rue Rougemont, your club friend. He was presented by Maurice. You often spoke to me of a possible alliance there. Evidently he thinks her charming. Just at present he is talking to her, and looks at her, looks at her. What shall I do? Shall I put a stop to it or allow it to continue? Large fortune, isn't there?"

M. Derame in his turn showed his despatch to M. Chamblard. They continued to talk, in high good-humor and in excellent accord, and went on with their game of piquet only after having sent the following two telegrams to the Hotel de Noailles:

First despatch to Mme. Derame: "If it pleases you, if it pleases her, yes. Enormous fortune."

Second despatch to Raoul: "Have spoken to D. He is telegraphing to Mme.

D. He approves, so do I."

A footman carried the two despatches at the same time to the telegraph-office in the Place de la Bourse, and during the time that, running over the wires along the railroad, they pa.s.sed the express towards half-past six in the neighborhood of Saint-Rambert, the Derames, Raoul, and Maurice, in the best possible spirits and in most perfect harmony, dined at the same table, and Martha looked at Raoul, and Raoul looked at Martha, and Mme. Derame said to herself: "Martha's falling in love; I know her, she is falling in love. She fell in love just so last year at a ball with a little youth who was very dandified, but without fortune. This time, luckily, yes--Edward told me so--there is plenty of money; so, naturally, if Martha is willing we are."

The train ran on, and on, and on; and Raoul talked, and talked, and talked. He even let slip practical thoughts, raised himself up to general ideas, and developed with force the theory that the first duty of a woman was to be, in all things, refined elegance. He explained, with endless detail, what the life of an absolutely correct fashionable woman was, what it was to be an absolutely fashionable woman. He triumphantly took _his fashionable woman_ from Paris to Trouville, from Trouville to Lake Como, from Lake Como to Monte-Carlo. He drew the trunks of the fashionable woman, marvellous trunks, which were heaped up in the vestibules of first-cla.s.s hotels. Besides, he had also invented a trunk.

Then, very tactfully, he put Martha through a little examination, which had nothing in common with the examinations of the Sorbonne or the Hotel de Ville.

"Did she skate?" That's what he wanted to know first! He was himself a very distinguished skater. He needed a sport-loving wife. He had but just p.r.o.nounced the word skating when suddenly the young brother (how precious little brothers sometimes are) exclaimed: "Ah, it's sister who skates well! She makes figures-of-eight. And who swims well, too--like a fish!"

She skated, she swam, she was sport-loving. Raoul said to the young girl, with deep enthusiasm: "I congratulate you. A woman who can't swim isn't a woman."

And he added, with increasing energy:

"A woman who can't skate isn't a woman."

When he had a strong thought, he willingly used it again in a brief but striking form.

Martha's face beamed with joy. She was really a woman. Never had a sweeter word been said to her.

Night had come; it was necessary, therefore, to tear one's self away from that exquisite conversation, and return to the parlor-car. Young Derame was going to sleep; so they began to prepare for the trip through the train.

Here is the platform, the platform of the morning, the platform of the first meeting. She walks ahead of him, and in a whisper he says to her, "It's here that this morning--"

She turns round, and smiling repeats, "Yes, it's here that this morning--"

Always with that little English accent which never leaves her, even when she is most agitated.

_It is here that this morning_--That was all, and it said all. A delightful evening. No more rain, no more dust. Already there was the soft, balmy air of the South. The moon lit that idyl at full speed.

Spring-time everywhere, in the sky and in the hearts.

"She loves me," he said to himself.

"He adores me," she said to herself.