"Your father is very good, and loves you," he said. "At least we know that he will not have you sacrificed. I will ask him. If he refuses—then, mille tonnerres, I will carry you off into the woods, Hélène."
"It is no use asking him, dearest, none," she said. "Besides, you told them all that you did not care for me."
She lifted her head, and tried to look into his face.
"Ah, did they tell you that? Was that why you were angry?" Angelot cried.
"Yes," she said; "and now you had better ask to be forgiven."
Indeed, as they both knew too well, there were more serious things than kisses and loving words to occupy that stolen half-hour. They had to tell each other all—all they knew—and each became a little wiser. Hélène knew that General Ratoneau had actually asked for her, and that her father had refused to listen; thus realising that her mother was deceiving her, and also that for some hidden reason the plan seemed to Madame de Sainfoy still possible. Angelot, even as they sat there together, realised vividly that he was living in a fool's paradise; that his love's confession to her mother had made things incalculably worse, justifying all the stern treatment, the violent means, which such a mother might think necessary.
"She means to marry her to Ratoneau," he thought, "and she will do it, unless Heaven interferes by a miracle. Uncle Joseph is my only friend, and he cannot help me—at least—if I do not act at once, we are lost."
He lifted Hélène's fair head a little, and its pale beauty, in the dim gleam from the open window, seemed to fill his whole being as he gazed. He drew her towards him and kissed her again and again; it might have been a last embrace, a last good-bye, but he did not mean it for that.
"Will you come with me now?" he said.
"Yes!" Hélène said faintly.