“I can very easily supply you with such a one,” said the Mother Superior. “Your words apply to half the female criminals the government sends me to marry to the convicts. When I weigh their relative demerits I almost feel I am giving angels to devils, so heavy is the scale in favour of my sex. I have several young women of unusual gentleness and refinement, who could satisfy requirements the most exacting. If you like,” she went on, “I shall introduce you first to a poor girl named Suzanne. In the beginning it was like caging a bird to keep her here, but insensibly she has given her heart to God and has ceased to beat her wings against the bars.”
“Does she fulfil my conditions?” asked the count.
“Yes; a thousand times, yes!” exclaimed the Mother Superior. “Shall I give orders for her to be brought?”
“If you would have the kindness,” said de Charruel.
There was a long waiting after the command had gone forth. All the womanliness and latent coquetry of the nuns came out in this business of making ready their charges for the ordeal; and when it was whispered that the wooer was the Comte de Charruel himself, a personage with whose romantic history there was not a soul unfamiliar, great indeed was the excitement and preparation. At last, with a modest knock, the door opened and let in a young girl clothed in conventual grey. She had a very pretty face, a touch hardened by past misfortunes, a figure short, well knit, and not ungraceful, and wild black eyes that shrank to the ground at the sight of the count.
The Mother Superior motioned her to take a seat.
“This is Suzanne,” she said.
De Charruel rose to his feet and bowed.
There was a dead silence.
“Can you not say something?” said the old lady, turning to the count with some asperity.