Gilberte, who was less proof against joy than sorrow, awaited her solicitor’s promised letter with feverish impatience. Another four or five days, a week perhaps; and the mystery would be cleared up and the only obstacle to her marriage swept away.
She kept more and more indoors. What was the use of short, stealthy walks, when her imagination, which was now unfettered, took her across the immensity of the world, on Guillaume’s arm, under Guillaume’s eyes? She tried to read novels, to calm her excitement. But what are fictitious adventures worth at a time when our own destiny is on the point of fulfilment and when it is to be fulfilled in cloudless happiness? The one and only adventure was that which was leading her towards Guillaume. The story began and ended with Guillaume. Guillaume was its sole hero.
“It will come to-morrow,” she said, each day, with the fixed intention of sending the letter, the moment she received it, to Mme. de la Vaudraye.
The morning came and the afternoon and brought no letter. She felt not the least disappointment:
“It will come to-morrow,” she thought, all a-quiver with hope.
The postman became a person of importance in her eyes, a gentleman worth considering. She shot her prettiest smiles at him, as though she were trying to win his confidence and to persuade him that he must have a letter for her in his bag.
Adèle was enraptured:
“Oh, ma’am, you’re becoming as you used to be! And high time too! Yes, I was growing uneasy at seeing you always sad, taking no interest in things and looking so pale. But, there, you’re right: there’s as good fish in the sea as ever came out of it!”
Released from her silence, Adèle was at last able to repeat all that Domfront had said about the breach and all that was happening now. And Gilberte learnt that Mme. de la Vaudraye’s salon, after closing for three weeks, had reopened. M. Beaufrelant and M. le Hourteulx had been invited. Mme. Duval even predicted an approaching reconciliation with the younger Simare, whose father had never ceased pleading in his favour. At the last reception, the duet from Mireille, as sung by M. Lartiste the elder and Mle. du Bocage, both of whom were making great progress, had been vigorously applauded. But the chief thing was the transformation undergone by Guillaume, whom everybody considered changed for the better.
“They can’t get over it,” said Adèle. “I hear that he is the life and soul of the party and so amiable and so polite: just like a proper young man. He seems on the best of terms with his mother. The young ladies are all gone on him. Bless my soul, he’s a good-looking lad ... and it won’t take long before he’s turned all their heads....”