An hour before, the addition of Zéphyrine would have been very agreeable to me, but I no longer felt so timid in Madame d’Ionis’ society, and I confess that the presence of a third person annoyed me. I certainly had no sort of presumption, no impertinent ideas; but it seemed to me that I could have talked more sensibly and agreeably in a tête-à-tête. The presence of this full moon blunted my ideas, and impeded the flight of my imagination.
And then Zéphyrine was thinking of the thing, that I, most naturally, would gladly have forgotten.
“You see now, Madame Caroline,” said she to Madame d’Ionis, while crossing the gallery on the ground floor, “there is nothing at all in the green ladies’ room; M. Nivières has slept there undisturbed.”
“Well, dear me! My good creature, I don’t doubt it,” answered the young woman.
“M. Nivières doesn’t impress me as a fool but that doesn’t hinder me from believing that the abbé Lamyre did see something there.”
“Indeed,” said I, with some emotion, “I have occasionally had the honor of seeing Monsieur de Lamyre, and I should have thought him no more of a fool than myself.”
“He is not a fool, sir,” replied Zéphyrine, “he is fond of a joke which gives a serious tone to his jests.”
“No,” said Madame d’Ionis with decision, “he is a clever man with a powerful imagination. He began by making fun at our expense, and telling us stories about ghosts. It was easy then, not for our good dowager, but for the rest of us, to see that he was joking. But perhaps we should not jest too much about certain foolish ideas. It was very evident to me, that one night something frightened him, since then nothing could persuade him to enter that room. But let us speak of something else, for I am sure that M. Nivières is already sick of this story, as for myself it bores me inexpressibly, and since you have already shown him the manuscript, I am absolved from giving myself any further concern about it.”
“It is strange, madame,” replied Zéphyrine laughing, “one would say that you, in your turn, are beginning to put some faith in this story! I then am the only person in the house who remains incredulous.”
We entered the chapel and Madame d’Ionis rapidly sketched its history. She was very cultivated and nothing of a pedant, and exhibited in the course of her explanations all the important rooms, the statues, the paintings and all the rare and precious furniture contained in the castle. She manifested throughout so incomparable a grace and so remarkable a degree of complaisance that I fell in love at first sight, as they say, in love to the extent of being jealous when I reflected that she was perhaps as amiable with every one as with myself.