The Vicomtesse bent her large pug face forwards. "You know, my dear child," she whispered, "M. le Duc has . . . has recovered a good deal of his money, and if you wanted to assist the cause in that way, as I am sure we all do" (she never gave a penny herself), "you would find him by no means parsimonious."
"Possibly," said Mme. de Guéfontaine, shrugging her shoulders. "But I do not want M. le Duc either as a banker or in any other capacity."
"All I can say is that you do very wrong, Raymonde," urged her aunt. "You should always think of the future. Who is going to look after you in the years to come, when Henri is married and I am gone, and perhaps the English are not as generously disposed as they are at present?"
"I do not want the charity of the English!" said Raymonde, flushing. "And as for someone to take care of me—I am not a young girl. You forget; like you, ma tante, I am a widow."
"I do not know what that has to do with it, child," retorted her fellow-bereaved. "Even I sometimes, not so young as I was, feel . . ." She left her sensations of unprotectedness to the imagination. "Let me implore you to think about it seriously. If you are determined not to have the Duc (I am certain he is going to ask you, and probably this evening), you might even marry an Englishman. You are so odd, who knows?—it might be a success! There are English officers of family in Guernsey, I suppose?"
"I suppose so," returned Raymonde indifferently.
"My dear child, if they were there you must have seen them, in six months. I have met English officers, quite proper men. You have not taken a vow against marrying again, I imagine?"
"Not that I remember."
"Of course I know—your first marriage, your husband was somewhat old for you. And on that score, perhaps, M. le Duc . . ."
"The man I would marry," began Mme. de Guéfontaine suddenly, looking down and pleating the silken folds of her gown, "would not be like M. le Duc in any way. He would be lean and sinewy and agile. He would not be rich, but he would have a mouth that held always a shade of mockery, and he would do the most unexpected things with an air of being amused by them, from befooling a Republican official to saving the life of a woman who had tried to kill him."