"It was on the subject of a mine, said to be a rich one, that I also wished to speak to your highness. Could I find a better opportunity? Though my fortune is already considerable, it is nothing to what may come to our family at any moment. You will perhaps excuse, therefore, what you are pleased to call my royal prodigalities."
D'Aigrigny's dilemma became momentarily more and more thorny. The affair of the medals was so important, that he had concealed it even from Dr. Baleinier, though he had called in his services to forward immense interests. Neither had Tripeaud been informed of it, for the princess believed that she had destroyed every vestige of those papers of Adrienne's father, which might have put him on the scent of this discovery. The abbe, therefore was not only greatly alarmed that Mdlle. de Cardoville might be informed of this secret, but he trembled lest she should divulge it.
The princess, sharing the alarms of D'Aigrigny, interrupted her niece by exclaiming: "Madame, there are certain family affairs which ought to be kept secret, and, without exactly understanding to what you allude, I must request you to change the subject."
"What, madame! are we not here a family party? Is that not sufficiently evident by the somewhat ungracious things that have been here said?"
"No matter, madame! when affairs of interest are concerned, which are more or less disputable, it is perfectly useless to speak of them without the documents laid before every one."
"And of what have we been speaking this hour, madame, if not of affairs of interest? I really do not understand your surprise and embarrassment."
"I am neither surprised nor embarrassed, madame; but for the last two hours, you have obliged me to listen to so many new and extravagant things, that a little amaze is very permissible."
"I beg your highness's pardon, but you are very much embarrassed," said
Adrienne, looking fixedly at her aunt, "and M. d'Aigrigny also—which
confirms certain suspicions that I have not had the time to clear up.
Have I then guessed rightly?" she added, after a pause. "We will see—"
"Madame, I command you to be silent," cried the princess, no longer mistress of herself.
"Oh, madame!" said Adrienne, "for a person who has in general so much command of her feelings, you compromise yourself strangely."