"Still young, madame."
"And handsome?"
"Oh, yes! Handsome,—noble as his own heart."
The grateful and impassioned accent with which Fleur-de-Marie uttered these words caused a deeply painful sensation in Madame d'Harville's bosom. An unconquerable and inexplicable presentiment told her that it was indeed the prince. "The remarks of the inspectress were just," thought Clémence. "Goualeuse loves Rodolph; that was the name which she pronounced in her sleep. Under what strange circumstance had the prince and this unfortunate girl met? Why did Rodolph go disguised into the Cité?"
The marquise could not resolve these questions. She only remembered what Sarah had wickedly and mendaciously told her as to the pretended eccentricities of Rodolph. Was it not, in fact, strange that he should have extricated from the dregs of society a girl of such excessive loveliness, and evidently so intelligent and sensible?
Clémence had noble qualities, but she was a woman, and deeply loved Rodolph, although she had resolved to bury that secret in her heart's very core.
Without reflecting that this was unquestionably but one of those generous actions which the prince was accustomed to do by stealth, without considering that she was, perchance, confounding with love a sentiment that was but excess of gratitude, without considering that, even if this feeling were more tender, Rodolph must be ignorant of it, the marchioness, in the first moment of bitterness and injustice, could not help looking on Goualeuse as her rival. Her pride revolted when she believed she was suffering, in spite of herself, with such a humiliating rivalry; and she replied, in a tone so harsh as to contrast cruelly with the affectionate kindness of her first words:
"And how is it, then, mademoiselle, that your protector leaves you in prison? How comes it that you are here?"
"Oh, madame," said Fleur-de-Marie, struck at this sudden change of tone, "have I done anything to displease you?"
"In what could you have displeased me?" asked Madame d'Harville, haughtily.