, towards two o'clock he came. Mamma hadn't finished
dressing; I was alone. I ran to him. 'Ah, how glad I am to see you!' and
I kissed him with effusion. Then he, very much moved, yes, very much
moved, kissed me, and began to say to me such nice and pretty things
that I felt my heart melting. Ah, if mamma hadn't come for five
minutes--I would only have asked for five minutes!--and how quickly it
would have turned into love-making our little explanation!"

"Yes, that is true. The impulse that threw you into my arms was so
sincere. Ah, very certainly it was that day, at that moment, that I
began to love you. And then I looked at you. You were no longer the
same. There was such great and happy change."

"He does not dare say it, Aunt Louise, but I will say it: I had become
fatter. Ah, when I think that I might be Duchess of Courtalin if I had
remained thin. Those men! Those men! What wretches! But mamma came in,
then papa, and then my brother George. No explanation possible! There
they all were engaged in an odious conversation on the comparative
merits of the English and French boats--the English ones are faster, the
food on the French ones is better, etc. It was charming! At the end of
an hour Gontran went away, but not without giving me a very tender and
eloquent hand-shake. I could wish nothing more speaking than that
hand-shake. But mamma, who was observing us attentively, had clearly
seen our two hands, after having found a way to say very pleasant
things, had had a great deal of trouble in separating. I expected, of
course, to see him the next day. Did you come?"

"No."

"And the day after that?"

"No, nor then."

"At last, after three days, mamma took me to the races at the Bois de
Boulogne. We arrived, and there at once, two steps from me, I saw him.
But no, it was no longer he; frigid greeting, frigid good-day, frigid
hand-shake, frigid words, and very few of them--scarcely a few
sentences, awkward and embarrassed. Then he was lost in the crowd, and
that was all. He did not appear again. I was dumfounded, overcome,
crushed."

"But it was your mother who--"

"Yes, I know now; but I did not know that day. Yes, it was mamma. Oh,
must I not love mamma to have forgiven her that?"

"She had come to me very early in the morning the day after the very
eloquent hand-shake and there, in tears--yes, literally in tears (she
was sobbing)--she had appealed to my sense of honor, of delicacy, of
integrity. 'You both