nds
to make her his wife, and neither of them chooses to do anything. I
suppose they agree with you, madame, that a great gentleman must have
his little distractions." Her contempt was as scorching as a thing of
fire. "However, madame, you were about to say?"

"That on the day after to-morrow you are returning to Gavrillac. M. de
La Tour d'Azyr will most likely follow at his leisure."

"You mean when this dirty candle is burnt out?"

"Call it what you will." Madame, you see, despaired by now of
controlling the impropriety of her niece's expressions. "At Gavrillac
there will be no Mlle. Binet. This thing will be in the past. It is
unfortunate that he should have met her at such a moment. The chit is
very attractive, after all. You cannot deny that. And you must make
allowances."

"M. le Marquis formally proposed to me a week ago. Partly to satisfy the
wishes of the family, and partly..." She broke off, hesitating a moment,
to resume on a note of dull pain, "Partly because it does not seem
greatly to matter whom I marry, I gave him my consent. That consent,
for the reasons I have given you, madame, I desire now definitely to
withdraw."

Madame fell into agitation of the wildest. "Aline, I should never
forgive you! Your uncle Quintin would be in despair. You do not know
what you are saying, what a wonderful thing you are refusing. Have you
no sense of your position, of the station into which you were born?"

"If I had not, madame, I should have made an end long since. If I have
tolerated this suit for a single moment, it is because I realize the
importance of a suitable marriage in the worldly sense. But I ask of
marriage something more; and Uncle Quintin has placed the decision in my
hands."

"God forgive him!" said madame. And then she hurried on: "Leave this
to me now, Aline. Be guided by me--oh, be guided by me!" Her tone was
beseeching. "I will take counsel with your uncle Charles. But do not
definitely decide until this unfortunate affair has blown over. Charles
will know how to arrange it. M. le Marquis shall do penance, child,
since your tyranny demands it; but not in sackcloth and ashes. You'll
not ask so much?"

Aline shrugged. "I ask nothing at all," she said, which was neither
assent nor dissent.

So Mme. de Sautron interviewed her husband, a slight, middle-aged man,
very aristocratic in appearance and gifted with a certain shrewd sense.
She took with him precisely the tone that Aline had taken with