"Good? I am not good. Blanche taught me that years ago. There's nothing like having a good daughter to take a mother down. She makes me feel ashamed every day of my life."
"That's just the way she makes me feel," Jules cried, delighted to find that some one else shared his feeling. "Then she's so gentle and so kind," he rhapsodized, "and she thinks so little about herself! Do you—do you think——Oh, that's what almost drives me to despair sometimes. I hardly dare go near her. I hardly dare to speak to her."
Madame Perrault took a deep breath.
"You almost make me feel young again," she said, with a smile.
"Do you think I could make her love me?" Jules asked, marvelling at his own humility.
"Do you mean that you want to know whether I think she's in love with you or not?" Madame Perrault said briskly. "Ah, my friend, I can't answer that question. You must ask her yourself."
"Then you give me permission to ask her? You are willing? You have no objection?" He stopped suddenly, and looked radiantly at Madame Perrault's face. "How good you are, madame!" he repeated.
She began to laugh again,—a peculiar, gurgling laugh that came from her throat.
"Why should I object? You are a good fellow. You would make Blanche a good husband. It's time for her to get married. She needs some one to protect her. I can't follow her about all the rest of my life. She is twenty-two. Why shouldn't she marry?"
Jules' ardor was cooled by this practical reasoning; it made him practical too. He told Madame Perrault again of his little property. He could well afford to marry, he said. He loved Mademoiselle Blanche with all his heart; he couldn't live without her; he would give up everything for her; he would follow her everywhere. Ah, if he only knew whether she cared for him or not! She was so strange, so reserved. It was so hard to tell with a girl like her.