“A magistrate?”
“A gros bonnet of some kind; a professor or a deputy.”
“I’m awfully sorry for the poor girl,” I found myself moved to declare.
“You needn’t pity her too much; she’s a fine mouche—a sly thing.”
“Ah, for that, no!” I protested. “She’s no fool, but she’s an honest creature.”
My hostess gave an ancient grin. “She has hooked you, eh? But the mother won’t have you.”
I developed my idea without heeding this insinuation. “She’s a charming girl, but she’s a shrewd politician. It’s a necessity of her case. She’s less submissive to her mother than she has to pretend to be. That’s in self-defence. It’s to make her life possible.”
“She wants to get away from her mother”—Madame Beaurepas so far confirmed me. “She wants to courir les champs.”
“She wants to go to America, her native country.”
“Precisely. And she’ll certainly manage it.”