“Of course,” said Claire, shortly. “Are you coming?”
“No, Léon wants me. Good-bye, Monsieur Georges. If you see my father, will you beg him to come and see us?” She moved away, and he stared, open-mouthed, after her. There was a tender dignity in her face, a composure in her manner, which, after all he had heard, left him amazed. And, though his perceptions were slow, he read in her eyes that she was a very sorrowful woman. What could threaten Poissy? What had humbled Mlle. Claire? Even Félicie, whom they found with the coffee, had red and swollen eyes, although she brightened and became enthusiastic in her descriptions of the preparations for monseigneur, and of all that she and the Abbé Nisard had to organise. She even ran to fetch some of her cherished decorations, and when it appeared that a yard or two of coloured calico was wanting, and M. Georges offered to procure it in Tours, her little inexpressive face became radiant.
“Would you really be so kind? We should be most grateful, for I did not know where to turn, and to have failed in the effect just on account of two or three yards of stuff would have been too dreadful! Is it possible that you have never heard monseigneur preach! How much you would be edified! Instead of going to those terrible clubs where the Church is shut out, and the most dreadful doctrines are taught, you must come here and listen to him. You must indeed!”
M. Georges, whose talk at clubs had been always most innocent, was highly gratified.
“Mademoiselle is only too good,” he reiterated. “If I might be permitted—”
“But certainly,” cried Félicie, enchanted at a possible convert. “Monseigneur arrives on Monday—the day after to-morrow—and the function will be on Tuesday.”
“Félicie,” said her sister, warningly, “it is possible that we may not be able to receive monseigneur.”
Félicie nodded her head in full confidence.
“Ah, but I have spoken to Léon, and he wishes no change to be made; but everything to go on as was settled.”
“Perhaps—” hesitated M. Georges, “if Madame Léon wishes to see her father, Monsieur Bourget and I might come out together?”