“I am perfectly sure of it.”
“Well, now that you are here, I am half inclined to ask your advice.”
“I trust that you are not suffering.”
“No, thank heaven; I have never any cause to complain of my health; but I am very anxious about Sabine’s state.”
Her affection of maternal solicitude was a charming pendant to her display of conjugal affection, and again the doctor’s expression of assent came in in the right place.
“Yes, for a month, doctor, I have hardly seen Sabine, I have been so much engaged; but yesterday I met her, and was quite shocked at the change in her appearance.”
“Did you ask her what ailed her?”
“Of course, and she said, ‘Nothing,’ adding that she was perfectly well.”
“Perhaps something had vexed her?”
“She,—why, don’t you know that every one likes her, and that she is one of the happiest girls in Paris; but I want you to see her in spite of that.” She rang the bell as she spoke, and as soon as the footman made his appearance, said, “Lubin, ask Mademoiselle to have the goodness to step downstairs.”