This fact, that explained both her wealth and her freedom, gave him that shock always given by a discovery about some one of whom we have known nothing, but imagined much.
“I should have realized that, I think,” he said simply; “but you seemed to me very young, Madame.”
They had now reached the bench under the wallflowers. Carola seated herself.
“I am thirty,” she said; “I looked the same at twenty. The man I was with in Bohemia was my husband’s brother. Madame Dubussy is his sister. Now tell me about yourself. Why did you come to Paris?”
Luc smiled; his whole exquisite face changed and lit. There was nothing in his heart that he could explain to a woman; the idea of it made him smile.
“I intend to enter politics, as you surmised,” he answered. “I am a poor man, Madame, and have had to begin my career afresh.”
“Did they want you to remain in Aix?” she asked.
“My family? Yes.”
“But you have a great ambition, Monsieur.”
He was still smiling.