Gabrielle’s graceful being seemed to stiffen a little, and her words gave an absolute decision: "Nothing without you, Henri."
Lagardere seemed to tempt the girl with his next speech: "Those women you saw had palaces, had noble kinsfolk, had mothers—"
Gabrielle was not to be tempted from her faith. "A mother is the only treasure I envy them," she said, firmly.
Lagardere looked at her strangely, and again questioned her. "But suppose you had a mother, and suppose you had to choose between that mother and me?"
For a moment Gabrielle paused. The question seemed to have a distressing effect upon her. She echoed his last words: "Between my mother and you." Then she paused, and her lips trembled, but she spoke very steadily: "Henri, you are the first in the world for me."
Lagardere sighed. "You have never known a mother, but there are graver rivals to a friendship such as ours than a mother’s love."
"What rivals can there be to our friendship?" Gabrielle asked.
Lagardere answered her sadly enough, though he seemed to smile: "A girl’s love for a boy, a maid’s love for a man. That pretty gentleman who was here but now, and swore he adored you—if you were noble, could you love such a man as he?"
Gabrielle began to laugh, as if all the agitations of the past instants had been dissipated into nothingness by the jest of such a question. "I swear to you, Henri," she said, softly, "that the man I could love would not be at all like Monsieur de Chavernay."
In spite of himself, Lagardere gave a sigh of relief. It was something, at least, to know whom Gabrielle de Nevers could not love. He essayed to laugh, too.