"You certainly were."
"But as for telling you anything I oughtn't to tell you, you won't make me do that, however hard you may try. It is quite possible that you're a respectable man, and that your intentions are good, but I'm an honest woman, too, and I know what I ought and what I ought not to tell; so, though you might cut me in pieces, you wouldn't get a treacherous word out of me. That is the kind of a woman I am!"
"Where the devil can one hope to find a woman of sense?" M. de Maillefort said to himself as he left Madame Barbançon, quite despairing of getting any information out of the worthy housekeeper, and realising only too well the futility of his first efforts to discover Madame de Beaumesnil's illegitimate child.
CHAPTER XIII.
UNEXPECTED CONSOLATION.
Two months had elapsed since the death of Madame de Beaumesnil, and great activity reigned in the house of M. le Baron de la Rochaiguë, who had been appointed guardian of Ernestine de Beaumesnil at a family council convoked shortly after the demise of the countess.
The servants of the household were hurrying to and fro arranging articles of furniture, under the superintendence of the baron, his wife, and his sister, Mlle. Helena de la Rochaiguë, an old maid about forty-five years of age, whose plain black dress, downcast eyes, white, pinched face, and severely arranged white hair made her look very much like a religieuse, though she had never taken monastic vows.
M. de la Rochaiguë, a very tall, thin man, between sixty and seventy years of age, was quite bald. He had a receding forehead and chin, prominent blue eyes, and a long nose. His lips were wreathed in a perpetual smile, which displayed exceedingly white, but unusually long, teeth, that imparted a decidedly sheep-like character to his physiognomy. He had an excellent figure, and by holding himself rigidly erect and buttoning his long black coat straight up to his white cravat, he managed to make himself a living copy of the portrait of Canning, "the perfect type of a gentleman statesman," as the baron often remarked.
M. de la Rochaiguë was not a statesman, however, though he had long aspired to become one. In fact, this ambition had developed into a sort of mania with him. Believing himself an unknown Canning, and being unable to air his eloquence in the councils of the nation, he took advantage of each and every opportunity to make a speech, and always assumed a parliamentary tone and attitude in discussing the most trivial matter.
One of the most salient characteristics of the baron's oratory was a redundancy of adjectives and adverbs, which seemed to him to treble the effect of his finest thoughts, though if we might venture to adopt the baron's phraseology, we could truly say that nothing could be more insignificant, more commonplace, and more void of meaning than what he styled his thoughts.
Madame de la Rochaiguë, who was now about forty-five, had been extremely pretty, coquettish, and charming. Her figure was still slender and graceful, but the youthfulness and elaborateness of her toilets seemed ill-suited to one of her mature years.