“Then, really, you do not judge her too severely?”
“Your heart has not more indulgence for her than my own.”
“And yet it is from you that her first real sorrow comes.”
“From me?”
The baroness shook her head in a melancholy way, to convey an idea of her maternal affection and anxiety.
“Yes, from you, my dear marquis,” she replied, “from you alone. On the very day you entered this house, Cesarine’s whole nature changed.”
Having read his letter over, the man in the grand parlor had folded it, and slipped it into his pocket, and, having left his seat, seemed to be waiting for something. M. de Tregars was following, in the glass, his every motion, with the most eager curiosity. And nevertheless, as he felt the absolute necessity of saying something, were it only to avoid attracting the attention of the baroness,
“What!” he said, “Mlle. Cesarine’s nature did change, then?”
“In one night. Had she not met the hero of whom every girl dreams? —a man of thirty, bearing one of the oldest names in France.”
She stopped, expecting an answer, a word, an exclamation. But, as M. de Tregars said nothing,