"I like the country. I like Lancilly much better than Paris," said Hélène.
There was a moment's gleam of pity in Madame de Sainfoy's bright blue eyes. Languid, sad, yet not rebellious or sulky, her beautiful girl stood drooping like a white lily in the stern old frame of the window. The mother believed in discipline, and Hélène's childhood and youth had been spent in an atmosphere of cold severity. Punishments would have been very frequent, if her father's rather spasmodic and inconsequent kindness had not stepped in to save her. She owed a good deal to her father, but these debts only hardened her mother against both of them. Yet Madame de Sainfoy was not without a certain pride in the perfect form and features, the delicate, exquisite grace and distinction, which was one of these days to dazzle the Tuileries. On that, her resolution was firm and unchanging. Tout va bien! One of these days the Emperor's command might be expected. With that confident certainty in the background, she felt she need not trouble herself much about her husband's objections or her daughter's fancies.
"You are a very difficult young woman, Hélène," she said, still not unkindly, and her eyes travelled with slow consideration over every detail as the girl stood there. "I do not like that gown of yours," she said. "Don't wear it again. Give it to Jeanne—do you hear?"
"Must I? But it is not worn out, mamma. I would rather keep it," the girl said quickly, stroking her soft blue folds, which were in truth a little faded.
Then she flushed suddenly, for what reason could she give for loving the old gown! Not, certainly, that she had worn it one day in the garden—one day when Mademoiselle Moineau went to sleep!
"You will do as I tell you," said Madame de Sainfoy. Then she added with a slight laugh—"You are so fond of your own way, that I wonder you should object to being married. Do you think, perhaps, you would find a husband still more tyrannical?"
The girl shook her head. "No," she murmured.
"Then what is your reason? for you evidently intend not to be married at all."
"I do not say that," said Hélène; and Madame de Sainfoy was conscious, with sudden anger, that once more the dreamy grey eyes travelled out of the open window, far away to those lines of poplars and clipped elms opposite.
"How different things were when I was young!" she said. "My marriage with your father was arranged by our relations, without our meeting at all. I never saw him till everything was concluded. If I had disliked him, I could neither have said nor done anything."