The baroness beckoned Josephine to come close to her, and read her what followed in a lower tone of voice.
“Tell my wife I love her more and more every day. I don’t expect as much from her, but she will make me very happy if she can make shift to like me as well as her family do.”—“No danger! What husband deserves to be loved as he does? I long for his return, that his wife, his mother, and his sister may all combine to teach this poor soldier what happiness means. We owe him everything, Josephine, and if we did not love him, and make him happy, we should be monsters; now should we not?”
Josephine stammered an assent.
“NOW you may read his letter: Jacintha and all,” said the baroness graciously.
The letter circulated. Meantime, the baroness conversed with Aubertin in quite an undertone.
“My friend, look at Josephine. That girl is ill, or else she is going to be ill.”
“Neither the one nor the other, madame,” said Aubertin, looking her coolly in the face.
“But I say she is. Is a doctor’s eye keener than a mother’s?”
“Considerably,” replied the doctor with cool and enviable effrontery.
The baroness rose. “Now, children, for our evening walk. We shall enjoy it now.”