“Perhaps not. I don’t know. He might all the same. It would depend on how much she cared.”
“I will make her care.”
“But,” I broke off, I hesitated. Why should I have been so scrupulous? What obligation had I to warn Philibert that his daughter might fall in love with this eligible American? Still I did have a scruple.
“It is not considered fitting, you know, in our French world, for a young man to pay court to a jeune fille without her parents’ approval.”
“Then what am I to do?”
“I don’t know.”
We sat in silence a moment.
Suddenly he got up. He stood there before me, tall, clean, honest.
“You’re not against me, Madame de Joigny?”
“No, I’m not against you.”