“Andrée! Andrée! What do you mean?”
“Just what I said, Mother.”
At first this seemed to Claudine merely preposterous, almost laughable; one of Andrée’s freaks.
“But, my dear, you don’t know the man,” she protested.
“Oh, yes, I do,” said Andrée, calmly. “We’ve been writing to each other since last July, and I’ve seen him quite often lately. And I’ve made up my mind. I knew everyone would make a row; that’s why I didn’t tell you until the last moment. Al’s going to Europe on Saturday, and I’m going with him.”
Nothing in that speech made the slightest impression upon Claudine except the name “Al.” That seemed to her of tremendous significance; the vulgar name of a vulgar young man; it made the affair a fantasy. She was not so much worried now as surprised.
“My dear Andrée—” she said. “You....” She paused, aware of the need for caution.
“I knew you wouldn’t understand,” said Andrée, bitterly. “You can’t see beneath the surface. I knew all the arguing and talking and reasoning there’d be, but it’s not going to make one bit of difference. I’m the one to decide, and I have decided. I want to be married quietly at the City Hall to-morrow, without any fuss and—talking. I wasn’t even going to tell you until afterward but—” She frowned. “Somehow I couldn’t. I wanted to make one more attempt to get you to understand.”
“To give you your chance,” was what she meant, and what her mother understood. This was the supreme moment to come close to her child—and she sat spellbound, like a figure in a nightmare, unable to speak, unable to make even a pretense at comprehension.
“He’s the finest man I’ve ever seen,” Andrée went on. “He’s honest and kind and—rather wonderful, I think.”