“She and Will are great friends. Would you believe it, grandma?—last month she said to him point-blank: ‘Mr. Rowrer, I must find a match for you!’ Will only laughed. ‘Now, don’t say No!’ Mme. Riçois added mysteriously; ‘I have a great scheme in my head.’ ‘What is your scheme?’ Will asked, more and more amused. ‘But you mustn’t tell anybody! I wish to bring about a Franco-American alliance!’ Will didn’t answer, but I saw he understood, for I was present.”
“And what then?” asked grandma.
“Naturally they began talking about marriage. Mme. Riçois told us how she takes hold of the matter; the measures she takes for the parents: ‘I’ve found a young man who is quite in your line; this is his situation.’ Thereupon a family council is held, and the young girl is consulted as a matter of form. Oh, there’s a whole minute and complicated diplomacy.”
“And yet it would be so simple for the young folks to explain matters to each other!” grandma exclaimed.
“That is what Will answered; but Mme. Riçois objected that this is never done. I thought as much, but I know France. It was quite new to Will; and he kept repeating: ‘Is it possible? Is it possible? For my part, I’d like to be better acquainted with the girl I marry! I shall certainly never get married in France.’ Then Mme. Riçois spoke up: ‘The main thing is that you should please the parents.’ ‘But it’s the young girl I want to please, and to know if I am pleasing her,’ Will said obstinately. ‘M. Rowrer,’ Mme. Riçois said, ‘I have made twenty marriages and they’re all happy; and I myself married my husband without being acquainted with him. That was thirty years ago, and our honeymoon is not over yet!’ ‘Perhaps she is right,’ Will said when Mme. Riçois was gone. ‘Marriages seem to me as happy here as anywhere. Different countries have different manners, but at bottom they’re all the same.’ I’m persuaded, grandma, that from that day the Franco-American alliance began. I mean that the remembrance of Mlle. Yvonne was crystallized in his heart.”
While Ethel was speaking the shadows had grown darker beneath the trees. A purple haze softened the outlines of the glade. There was deep silence, with now and then an echo of the hunting-horns, light as the humming of a fly. Again the hunt found its way, and the doe, abandoned by her cowardly mate, turned back toward her haunts. Soon the hallali would push her to the thicket from which she had started, and where, at the end of her strength, she would take shelter to die.
“Listen,” Ethel said to grandma, “Will, Phil, and every one are out there, forgetful of care and trouble, chasing to its death a poor, innocent animal. Isn’t it sad?” Then, taking up her interrupted conversation, she continued: “From that day, especially, Will thought of Mlle. Yvonne. He saw her again several times and fell more and more under her charm, in spite of their commonplace interviews. Each time he discovered new qualities in her. When I praised her, Will was glad to listen; and Mme. Riçois was always after him with the scheme of the alliance. You can imagine that it didn’t please Will much to be obliged to win the parents in order to get the girl. Well! he won over everybody. As to grand’mère, who is the Egeria of the family, the one that decides difficult cases without appeal from her judgment—”
“Grand’mère said no for Yvonne?” grandma asked.
“Grand’mère said yes!”
“But if mother and grandmother, uncles and aunts, and Mme. Riçois say yes, who is it says no?”