"How naughty you are to-night! And what temper you are showing toward poor Serge! What an opinion he will have of himself after your displaying such a flattering scene of jealousy!"
Jeanne drew away her hand.
"Ah, don't try to joke. This is not the moment, I assure you. You don't exactly realize your situation. Don't you understand that I am prepared to tell Madame Desvarennes everything—"
"Everything!" said the Prince. "In truth, it would not amount to much. You would tell her that I met you in England; that I courted you, and that you found my attentions agreeable. And then? It pleases you to think too seriously of that midsummer night's dream under the great trees of Churchill Castle, and you reproach me for my errors! But what are they? Seriously, I do not see them! We lived in a noisy world; where we enjoyed the liberty which English manners allow to young people. Your aunt found no fault with the charming chatter which the English call flirtation. I told you I loved you; you allowed me to think that I was not displeasing to you. We, thanks to that delightful agreement, spent a most agreeable summer, and now you do not wish to put an end to that pleasant little excursion made beyond the limits drawn by our Parisian world, so severe, whatever people say about it. It is not reasonable, and it is imprudent. If you carry out your menacing propositions, and if you take my future mother-in-law as judge of the rights which you claim, don't you understand that you would be condemned beforehand? Her interests are directly opposed to yours. Could she hesitate between her daughter and you?"
"Oh! your calculations are clever and your measures were well taken," replied Jeanne. "Still, if Madame Desvarennes were not the woman you think her—" Then, hesitating:
"If she took my part, and thinking that he who was an unloyal lover would be an unfaithful husband—she would augur of the future of her daughter by my experience; and what would happen?"
"Simply this," returned Serge. "Weary of the precarious and hazardous life which I lead, I would leave for Austria, and rejoin the service. A uniform is the only garb which can hide poverty honorably."
Jeanne looked at him with anguish; and making an effort said:
"Then, in any case, for me it is abandonment?" And falling upon a seat, she hid her face in her hands. Panine remained silent for a moment. The young girl's, grief, which he knew to be sincere, troubled him more than he wished to show. He had loved Mademoiselle de Cernay, and he loved her still. But he felt that a sign of weakness on his part would place him at Jeanne's mercy, and that an avowal from his lips at this grave moment meant a breaking-off of his marriage with Micheline. He hardened himself against his impressions, and replied, with insinuating sweetness:
"Why do you speak of desertion, when a good man who loves you fondly, and who possesses a handsome fortune, wishes to marry you?"