“What a wonderful change in everything, Gabrielle,” she exclaimed when the three men had left them. “How happy you look. And what a little cheat you were.”
“I? When?”
“Innocent! Why the day after M. Gerard met you in the market place. When you said that if for a moment you had swerved from thoughts of duty, a night’s reflection had sobered you. Sobered you! Intoxicated you, you should have said.”
“I did not know that Gerard was——” Lucette broke in with a merry laugh, and Gabrielle blushed.
“Was Gerard de Cobalt? Nor was he. But do you remember my words, when you were such a philosopher about the plagues of love? I told you you would learn to know it all some day. Oh, Gabrielle, what a lecture I might read you now! You cannot find him near you without a dozen tremors and a fleeting tide of colour in your face and light in your eyes; and when he is not by your side, how restless is Gabrielle, with glances here and glances there, listening for his footstep or his voice, and impatience, oh, such impatience, at all that keeps him from you.”
“If I plead guilty, has the court no mercy for me?”
“My dearest, I love you for it. But I told you how it would be; and God knows neither you nor I would have it otherwise. Ah, here is M. Pascal,” she said as he came round the house.
“Mademoiselle, I have hastened from the city to crave your pardon,” he said to Gabrielle.
“You are already assured of it, monsieur, for I know the offence will be but a trifle.”
“You must not trust all men, Gabrielle,” put in Lucette briskly.