ur conjugal love. When back
at Bergenheim, you dream and sigh for Paris. Do not shake your head; I
am an old aunt to whom you pay no heed, but who sees clearly yet. Will
you do me the favor to tell me what it is that you regret in Paris at
this time of the year, when there are no balls or parties, and not
one human being worth visiting, for all the people you know are in the
country? Is it because--"

Mademoiselle de Corandeuil did not finish her sentence, but she put
a severity into these three words which seemed to condense all the
quintessence of prudery that a celibacy of sixty years could coagulate
in an old maid's heart.

Clemence raised her eyes to her aunt's face as if to demand an
explanation.

It was such a calm, steady glance that the latter could not help being
impressed by it.

"Well," said she, softening her voice, "there is no necessity for
putting on such queenly airs; we are here alone, and you know that I am
a kind aunt to you. Now, then, speak freely--have you left anything or
any person in Paris, the remembrance of which makes your sojourn here
more tiresome than it really is? Any of your adorers of the winter?"

"What an idea, aunt! Did I have any adorers?" exclaimed Madame de
Bergenheim, quickly, as if trying to conceal by a smile the rosy flush
that mounted to her cheeks.

"And what if you should have some, child?" continued the old maid, to
whom curiosity lent an unaccustomed coaxing accent to her voice, "where
would be the harm? Is it forbidden to please? When one is of good birth,
must one not live in society and hold one's position there? One need not
bury one's self in a desert at twenty-three years of age, and you really
are charming enough to inspire love; you understand, I do not say,
to experience it; but when one is young and pretty conquests are made
almost unwittingly. You are not the first of the family to whom that
has happened; you are a Corandeuil. Now, then, my good Clemence, what
troubled heart is pining for you in Paris? Is it Monsieur de Mauleon?"

"Monsieur de Mauleon!" exclaimed the young woman, bursting into
laughter; "he, a heart! and a troubled one, too! Oh, aunt, you do him
honor! Monsieur de Mauleon, who is past forty-five years old and wears
stays! an audacious man who squeezes his partners' hands in the dance
and looks at them with passionate glances! Oh! Monsieur de Mauleon!"

Mademoiselle de Corandeuil sanctioned by a slight grimace of her thin
lips her nie