“Is Monsieur Saint-Martin come, Adolphe?”
Nobody answered. Octavie had nudged her brother, and he began to be afraid that he might be punished for repeating words he had caught in his mother’s high-pitched voice as he passed the bedroom door. “All the world may know that Monsieur Saint-Martin is coming,” she had said; but Adolphe remembered one or two sharp calamities which had befallen him for repeating his mother’s sayings when she was “in a tempest.” He would not speak.
“Adolphe, dear Adolphe, is he really come?” said Thérèse. Her eyes looked like stars; she put out her hands imploringly; she wanted to hear it again, but she believed it at once; she was so young that happiness seemed the most natural thing in the world. Of course he was come; her troubles were at an end; her heart felt as if it was dancing for joy. He was come; every thing was changed, forgotten; her youthfulness leaped up again; she looked kindly even on Octavie. “Where is he, dear children, is he here?”
Adolphe shook his head emphatically; he did not know what to say. Octavie, who believed that a great blunder had been committed, said, patronisingly,—
“You should not listen to him, mademoiselle: he does not understand.”
“Mamma said it,” cried Adolphe stoutly, determined to assert himself. But Thérèse was already flying down the stairs into the little salon. “Perhaps he is there,” she thought. Monsieur and madame, who were standing together in the middle of the room, turned hastily round as Thérèse came quickly in. It might have been the light, which was not burning very brightly or clearly, that made their faces look yellow and haggard, the notary’s especially. Perhaps they, too, believed they might have seen M. Saint-Martin, when the door opened so abruptly, and Thérèse, flushed, smiling, radiant, stood before them.
“Is he here?” she asked joyfully, though a momentary glance showed her that no one was in the room but monsieur and madame, who were speechless at a question which seemed to echo back their fears. Madame recovered herself instantly.
“To whom do you allude, mademoiselle?” she inquired with a politeness, to which Thérèse was a stranger.
The girl patted the ground impatiently. “To my cousin—to M. Saint-Martin. Adolphe tells me that he is come.”
“That boy romances—he is a droll,” said madame, holding up her hands and turning to her husband, with a little show of parental interest. “He means no harm; but he must not be allowed to make announcements so unfounded without correction. I shall—”