Still absorbed by the scene in the grand parlor,
“Strange, indeed!” he answered.
“And such is,” said the baroness with a sigh, “the result of M. de Thaller’s weakness, and above all of my own.
“We have no child but Cesarine; and it was natural that we should spoil her. Her fancy has been, and is still, our only law. She has never had time to express a wish: she is obeyed before she has spoken.”
She sighed again, and deeper than the first time. “You have just seen,” she went on, “the results of that insane education. And yet it would not do to trust appearances. Cesarine, believe me, is not as extravagant as she seems. She possesses solid qualities,—of those which a man expects of the woman who is to be his wife.”
Without taking his eyes off the glass,
“I believe you madame,” said M. de Tregars.
“With her father, with me especially, she is capricious, wilful, and violent; but, in the hands of the husband of her choice, she would be like wax in the hands of the modeler.”
The man in the parlor had finished his letter, and, with an equivocal smile, was reading it over.
“Believe me, madame,” replied M. de Tregars, “I have perfectly understood how much naive boasting there was in all that Mlle. Cesarine told me.”