“What!” he exclaimed, “the viscount was at your house? Your grandmother, your companion, your servants, they all saw him and spoke to him?”
“No, sir; he came and left in secret. He wished no one to see him; he desired to be alone with me.”
“Ah!” said the magistrate with a sigh of relief. The sigh signified: “It’s all clear—only too evident. She is determined to save him, at the risk even of compromising her reputation. Poor girl! But has this idea only just occurred to her?”
The “Ah!” was interpreted very differently by Mademoiselle d’Arlange. She thought that M. Daburon was astonished at her consenting to receive Albert.
“Your surprise is an insult, sir,” said she.
“Mademoiselle!”
“A daughter of my family, sir, may receive her betrothed without danger of anything occurring for which she would have to blush.”
She spoke thus, and at the same time was red with shame, grief, and anger. She began to hate M. Daburon.
“I had no such insulting thought as you imagine, mademoiselle,” said the magistrate. “I was only wondering why M. de Commarin went secretly to your house, when his approaching marriage gave him the right to present himself openly at all hours. I still wonder, how, on such a visit, he could get his clothes in the condition in which we found them.”
“That is to say, sir,” replied Claire bitterly, “that you doubt my word!”