"What, uncle! then you knew—"
The poor woman stopped. Josette sighed. Neither the viscount nor the abbe observed anything amiss. After breakfast the Abbe de Sponde carried off his guest, as agreed upon the previous evening, to show him the various houses in Alencon which could be bought, and the lots of lands on which he might build.
Left alone in the salon, Mademoiselle Cormon said to Josette, with a deeply distressed air, "My child, I am now the talk of the whole town."
"Well, then, mademoiselle, you should marry."
"But I am not prepared to make a choice."
"Bah! if I were in your place, I should take Monsieur du Bousquier."
"Josette, Monsieur de Valois says he is so republican."
"They don't know what they say, your gentlemen: sometimes they declare that he robbed the republic; he couldn't love it if he did that," said Josette, departing.
"That girl has an amazing amount of sense," thought Mademoiselle
Cormon, who remained alone, a prey to her perplexities.
She saw plainly that a prompt marriage was the only way to silence the town. This last checkmate, so evidently mortifying, was of a nature to drive her into some extreme action; for persons deficient in mind find difficulty in getting out of any path, either good or evil, into which they have entered.