“Ah, my dear sister!” thought Maxence, “who could have suspected such a thing, seeing you always so calm and so meek!”
“Is it possible,” Mme. Favoral was saying to herself; “that I can have been so blind and so deaf?”
As to the Count de Villegre, he would have tried in vain to express the gratitude he felt towards Mlle. Gilberte for having spared him these difficult explanations.
“I could not have done half as well myself, by the eternal!” he thought, like a man who has no illusions on his own account.
But, as soon as she had done, addressing himself to Mme. Favoral,
“Now, madame,” he said, “you know all; and you will understand that the irreparable disaster that strikes you has removed the only obstacle which had hitherto stood in the way of Marius.”
He rose, and in a solemn tone, without any hum or broum, this time,
“I have the honor, madame,” he uttered, “to solicit the hand of Mlle. Gilberte, your daughter, for my friend Yves-Marius de Genost, Marquis de Tregars.”
A profound silence followed this speech. But this silence the Count de Villegre doubtless interpreted in his own favor; for, stepping to the parlor-door, he opened it, and called, “Marius!”
Marius de Tregars had foreseen all that had just taken place, and had so informed the Count de Villegre in advance.