Turning shortly about to her niece, her aunt stared at her.
"In love, my dear!"
"With Madame de la Maine."
The arrival of Madame de la Maine had been a bitter blow to the Marquise d'Esclignac. The young woman was, however, much loved in Paris and quite in the eye of the world. There was no possible reason why the Marquise d'Esclignac should avoid her.
"You have been hearing gossip, Julia."
"I have been watching a lovely woman," said the girl simply, "and a man. That's all. You wouldn't want me to marry a man who loves another woman, ma tante, when the woman loves him and when I love another man?"
She laughed and kissed her aunt's cheek.
"Let us think of the soldier," she murmured, "let us think just of him, ma tante, will you not?"
The Marquise d'Esclignac struck her colors.
In the hallway of the villa, in a snowy gibbeh, (and his clean-washed appearance was much in his favor) Hammet Abou waited to talk with the "grandmother" and the excellency.