"What do you mean, my child?" she exclaimed.
"You ask me," Jeanne said, "why I went wandering off into the marshes. I will tell you. It is because I am unhappy. It is because I do not like the life into which you have brought me, nor the people with whom we live. I do not like late hours, supper parties and dinner parties, dances where half the people are bourgeois, and where all the men make stupid love to me. I do not like the shops, the vulgar shop people, fashionable clothes, and fashionable promenading. I am tired of it already. If I am rich, why may I not buy the right to live as I choose?"
The Princess rarely allowed herself to show surprise. At this moment, however, she was completely overcome.
"What is it you want, then, child?" she demanded.
"I should like," Jeanne answered, "to buy Mr. De la Borne's house upon the island, and live there, with just a couple of maids, and my books. I should like some friends, of course, but I should like to find them for myself, amongst the country people, people whom I could trust and believe in, not people whose clothes and manners and speech are all hammered out into a type, and whose real self is so deeply buried that you cannot tell whether they are honest or rogues. That is what I should like, stepmother, and if you wish to earn my gratitude, that is how you will let me live."
The Princess stared at the child as though she were a lunatic.
"Jeanne," she exclaimed weakly, "what has become of you?"
"Nothing," Jeanne answered, "only you asked me a question, and I felt an irresistible desire to answer you truthfully. It would have come sooner or later."
Andrew turned slowly toward the girl, who stood looking at her stepmother with flushed cheeks and quivering lips.
"Miss Le Mesurier," he said, "on one condition I will sell you the island, but on only one."