"Oh, yes," said the duchess, interrupting M. de Saint-Remy, "he was so very fond of you! You remember he always called you the man with the green ribands, and you always told him, 'You spoil Clotilde; mind, I tell you so;' and he replied, whilst he kissed me, 'I really do believe I spoil her, and I must make all haste and double my spoiling, for very soon the world will deprive me of her to spoil her in their turn.' Dear father! What a friend I lost!" and a tear started to the lovely eyes of Madame de Lucenay; then, extending her hand to M. de Saint-Remy, she said, in a faltering voice, "But indeed, in truth, I am happy, very happy, to see you again, you call up such precious remembrances,—memories so dear to my heart!"
The comte, although he had long been acquainted with her original and decisive disposition, was really amazed at the ease with which Clotilde reconciled herself to her exceedingly delicate position, which was no other than to meet her lover's father in her lover's house.
"If you have been in Paris for any time," continued Madame de Lucenay, "it is very naughty of you not to have come and seen me before this; for we should have had such long talks over the past; for you must know that I have reached an age when there is an excessive pleasure in saying to old friends, 'Don't you remember!'"
Assuredly the duchess could not have discoursed with more confirmed tranquillity if she were receiving a morning visit at the Hôtel de Lucenay. M. de Saint-Remy could not prevent himself from saying with severity:
"Instead of talking of the past, it would be more fitting to discourse of the present. My son is expected every instant, and—"
"No," said Clotilde, interrupting him, "I have the key of the little door of the conservatory, and his arrival is always announced by a ring of the bell when he returns by the principal entrance; and at that sound I shall disappear as mysteriously as I arrived, and will leave you to all your pleasure, at again seeing Florestan. What a delightful surprise you will give him! For it is so long since you forsook him. Really, now I think of it, it is I who have to reproach you."
"Me? Reproach me?"
"Assuredly. What guide, what aid had he, when he entered on the world? whilst there are a thousand things for which a father's counsels are indispensable. So, really and truly, it is very wrong of you—"
Here Madame de Lucenay, yielding to the whimsicality of her character, could not help laughing most heartily, and saying to the comte:
"It must be owned that our position is at least an odd one, and that it is very funny that it should be I who am sermonising you."