Saval had fascinated her, captured her body and soul. She dreamed of him now, soothed by his image and her remembrance of him, in the calm exaltation of a joy fulfilled, of a happiness present and certain.
A noise behind her made her turn round. Yvette had just come in, still in the same dress she had worn all day, but pale now, and with the burning eyes that are the mark of great weariness. She leaned on the ledge of the open window opposite her mother.
“I’ve something to tell you,” she said.
The Marquise, surprised, looked at her. Her love for her daughter was selfish; she was proud of her beauty, as one is proud of wealth; she was herself still too beautiful to be jealous, too careless to make the plans she was commonly supposed to entertain, yet too cunning to be unconscious of her daughter’s value.
“Yes, child,” she replied, “I’m listening; what is it?”
Yvette gave her a burning look, as though to read the depths of her soul, as though to detect every emotion which her words would rouse.
“This is it. Something extraordinary happened just now.”
“What?”
“Monsieur de Servigny told me he loved me.”
The Marquise waited, uneasy. But as Yvette said nothing more, she asked:
“How did he tell you? Explain!”
The young girl sat down by her mother’s feet in a familiar coaxing attitude and, pressing her hand, said:
“He asked me to marry him.”
Madame Obardi made a sudden gesture of amazement, and cried:
“Servigny? You must be mad!”
Yvette’s eyes had never left her mother’s face, watching sharply for her thoughts and her surprise.
“Why must I be mad?” she asked gravely. “Why should Monsieur de Servigny never marry me?”
“You must be wrong,” stammered the Marquise, embarrassed; “it can’t be true. You can’t have heard properly—or you misunderstood him. Monsieur de Servigny is too rich to marry you, and too … too … Parisian to marry at all.”
Yvette slowly rose to her feet.
“But if he loves me as he says he does?” she added.
Her mother replied somewhat impatiently:
“I thought you were old enough and knew enough of the world not to have such ideas in your head. Servigny is a man of the world and an egoist; he will only marry a woman of his own rank and wealth. If he asked you to marry him … it means he wants … he wants …”
The Marquise, unable to voice her suspicions, was silent for a moment, then added:
“Now leave me alone, and go to bed.”
And the young girl, as though she now knew all she wanted, replied obediently:
“Yes, mother.”
She kissed her mother’s forehead and departed with a calm step. Just as she was going out of the door, the Marquise called her back:
“And your sunstroke?” she asked.
“I never had one. It was this affair which had upset me.”
“We’ll have another talk about it,” added the Marquise. “But, above all, don’t be alone with him again after this occurrence for some time. And you may be quite sure that he won’t marry you, do you understand, and that he only wants to … to compromise you.”
This was the best she could do by way of expressing her thoughts. And Yvette returned to her room.
Madame Obardi began to reflect.
Having lived for years in an amorous and opulent tranquillity, she had carefully guarded her mind from every thought that might preoccupy, trouble, or sadden her. She had always refused to ask herself what would become of Yvette; there was always time enough to think of that when difficulties arose. She knew, with her courtesan’s instinct, that her daughter could not marry a rich and highborn man save by an extremely improbable piece of good fortune, one of those surprises of love which set adventuresses upon thrones. She did not really contemplate this possibility, too much preoccupied to form plans by which she herself would not be directly affected.
Yvette would doubtless follow in her mother’s footsteps. She would become a light o’ love; why not? But the Marquise had never had the courage to ask herself when, or how, this would come about. And now here was her daughter suddenly, without any preparation, asking her one of those questions which cannot be answered, and forcing her to take up a definite position in an affair so difficult, so delicate, so dangerous in every sense, and which so profoundly troubled her conscience, the conscience any mother must display when her daughter is involved in an affair such as this.
She had too much natural wit, a wit which might nod but was never quite asleep, to be deceived for one moment in Servigny’s intentions, for she knew men, by personal experience, especially men of that tribe. And so, at the first words uttered by Yvette, she had cried out, almost involuntarily:
“Servigny marry you? You must be mad!”
What had led him to use the old, old trick—he, the shrewd rake, the jaded man about town? What would he do now? And the child, how was she to be more explicitly warned or even forbidden? She was capable of any folly. Who would imagine that a great girl like that could be so innocent, so ignorant, and so unwary?
And the Marquise, thoroughly perplexed and already exhausted by her mental efforts, was utterly at a loss, finding the situation really awkward.
Weary of the whole business, she thought:
“Oh, well, I’ll keep a close watch on them and act according to events. If necessary, I’ll even talk to Servigny; he’s sensitive, and can take a hint.”
She did not ask herself what she should say to him, nor what he would reply, nor what sort of an agreement could be made between them, but, happy at being relieved of one anxiety without having had
