“You are becoming rustic in your tastes, then; I delight to see you so disposed. But you are pale.”
“No, I am perfectly well.”
“So much the better; I was becoming uneasy about you. You do not know what I have been told.”
“People say so many things.”
“Yes, but this is very singular.”
“How well you know how to excite curiosity, Marguerite.”
“Well, I was afraid of vexing you.”
“Never; you have yourself always admired me for my evenness of temper.”
“Well, then, it is said that—no, I shall never be able to tell you.”
“Do not let us talk about it, then,” said Madame de Belliere, who detected the ill-nature that was concealed by all these prefaces, yet felt the most anxious curiosity on the subject.