“Is there really nothing more that you can tell me about Monsieur Saint-Martin?” he asked.
“Nothing of the present,” said Thérèse, slowly.
“Well, of the past, then?”
“What did you hear at Ardron?”
“Nothing.”
“Ah, that is no wonder,” said Thérèse, speaking with a little more animation. “The people at Ardron scarcely know Fabien; we have been there such a little time, you see. We used to live at Rouen—my uncle, my aunt, Fabien, and I. Fabien has always lived with them; my uncle loved him better than any one else in the world. I went to Rouen when my father and mother died, that was eleven years ago,” said Thérèse, considering; “I was nine years old and Fabien was fourteen.”
“And your aunt took you?”
“Yes. Poor aunt Ferdinande! she tried to be kind; and my uncle was generous—very generous. He despised women, though, monsieur, and he never professed to like me. Is it not strange that, after all, I should have been the only one left to him now?”
She spoke in a questioning dreamy sort of way, clasping her hands over her knee, and looking out of the window at the dropping rain. There was a certain easy grace in her attitude, in the curves of her figure, in the poise of her head. Monsieur Deshoulières was not noticing it, he glanced at the timepiece instead and fidgeted.
“Then, as I understand, M. Moreau intended his nephew to enter his house at Rouen?” he asked.