Madeleine held out her arms to the girl, and for a moment they stood clasped in each other's embrace.
"Ah, Monsieur Jules," the old woman cried, "I pray God your mother can look down from heaven and see what a good daughter she's getting!"
IX
After confessing his love, Jules experienced, mingled with his exultation, a feeling of bewildered amazement at his own boldness. This was followed by a poignant regret that he hadn't spoken before. Now, however, that his weeks of doubt and of intermittent misery were over, he gave himself up to his happiness, which manifested itself in a wild exuberance of spirits.
In a short time he was speaking humorously of those weeks, ridiculing himself as if he had already become different, almost another person from what he had been then. He told Blanche about his tortures, and even succeeded in extorting a confession from her that she had been in love with him since the first Sunday when he had called at the apartment and acknowledged Durand's duplicity; she, too, had had her doubts and her fears. Then they became very confidential, and by the time the morning was over, and they found themselves in the restaurant, they felt as if they had known each other intimately for years.
In spite of Blanche's protests, Jules ordered a bottle of champagne and an elaborate luncheon.
"I suppose I ought to have asked Madeleine to come," he said, "but I wanted to be alone with you. Some day before your mother returns, we'll have another fête, and take Madeleine with us."
In the morning, when he spoke about a definite engagement, and she protested that her mother must be consulted, he had told her of his talk with Madame Perrault at the railway station. Now he went on to make plans for their marriage. There was no reason, he argued, why they should wait a long time; her mother had been engaged to Monsieur Berthier for three years, but she would not marry till Blanche had a protector. Jules liked to talk of himself in this character; it gave him a feeling of importance. So, altogether, he went on, the sooner the marriage took place the better. He would give up his place in the wool-house, and devote himself to his wife's career; for, of course, they couldn't be separated. They would be very happy travelling about, from one end of the world to the other.