For a moment it was like a passage of arms between a frank young Indian chief and a Jesuit. Julia, as it were, shook her feathers and her beads.
"And I don't care in the least about being a duchess! My father made his money in oil. I am not an aristocrat like my aunt," she said.
"Then," said the Comtesse de la Maine, forgetting that she was a Jesuit, "you will marry Robert de Tremont simply to please your aunt?"
"But nothing on earth would induce me to marry him!" cried Julia Redmond. "That's what I'm telling you, Madame. I don't love him!"
The Comtesse de la Maine looked at her companion and bit her lip. She blushed more warmly than is permitted in the Faubourg St.-Germain, but she was young and the western influence is pernicious.
"I saw at once that you loved him," said Julia Redmond frankly. "That's why I speak as I do."
The Comtesse de la Maine drew back and exclaimed.
"Oh," said Julia Redmond, "don't deny it. I shan't like you half so well if you do. There is no shame in being in love, is there?—especially when the man you love, loves you."
The Comtesse de la Maine broke down, or, rather, she rose high. She rose above all the smallness of convention and the rules of her French formal education.
"You are wonderful," she said, laughing softly, her eyes full of tears. "Will you tell me what makes you think that he is fond of me?"