"I beg pardon, madame la comtesse," rejoined Camille, tartly, "I thought that it was of the greatest consequence."
"As you please, my dear. Go and bring me my gray parasol. There is so much of this pride on all sides," thought Madame d'Estrelle, "that it will disgust me with all prejudices; it will make me more fond of Jean-Jacques Rousseau than I ought to be; and really I am beginning to wonder if the great are not living a little on their past, and if all this antiquated nonsense is not becoming useful to amuse our servants."
She took her gray parasol, with a vague feeling of dissatisfaction; then sat down in her salon, open to the April sun, saying to herself that she must not go in the direction of the pavilion any more, and perhaps not into her garden at all.
Then it was that Madame Thierry, finding that she did not come to meet her as she expected, ventured to go as far as the house, to pay her respects to her and thank her. Madame d'Estrelle received her with great courtesy, but the widow was too keen not to detect a shade of embarrassment in her greeting, and she had hardly seated herself before she thanked her and rose to go.
"Already?" said the countess. "You find me ungracious, I am sure, and I confess that I feel some slight embarrassment with you to-day which makes me act foolishly. So let us have done at once with this nonsense, which I am sure you will forgive. When I came and spoke to you yesterday, I had no idea that you had a son, a young and estimable man, I am told, who lives with you."
"Let me tell the rest, madame la comtesse. You are afraid——"
"Oh! mon Dieu! I am afraid that people will talk, that is all. I am young, alone in the world, with no immediate protector; a stranger in a family which accepted me only with regret, as I learned too late, and which blames me for not choosing to pass my period of mourning in a convent."
"I know all that, madame la comtesse; my nephew Marcel told me. As I am most solicitous for your good name, I do not propose that your kindness of heart shall carry you too far. You must not come to the pavilion so long as I live there, nor must I come into the garden or to your house. That is what I came to say to you. It is not necessary for me to add that my son never for an instant supposed that he was included in the permission which you so graciously gave me yesterday."
"Very good!" cried the countess, "this last point is all that is necessary. I thank you for your delicacy, which makes it possible for me not to return your visits; but as to the other point, I do not agree with you. You will walk in my garden and you will come to see me."
"Perhaps it would be better that I should not come."