When her first rapture of gratitude and joy was over, Diane, ever practical, said trembling:
“I am willing to live quietly and never to bother you, but I want my people, the Grandins and François and Jean, to know that I am really married to you. I could not live—I could not live, if they don’t know it.”
“Certainly,” answered the Marquis readily. “You see, I really belong in the district where the shooting-box lies. My Colonel will ask me questions, for an officer can’t get married on the sly, but trust me to manage that. Let me see, I can get three days’ leave three weeks from to-day; this is Saturday. You and I and Madame Grandin can go to the little place and the civil and religious ceremonies can both be performed the same day.”
“And M. Grandin and François and Jean can go too?” asked Diane anxiously.
“What’s the use?” replied Egmont. “Grandin will be certain to talk too much in that rumbling big voice of his, and create remark. As for François and that great, hulking Jean, I object to them decidedly. You will need two witnesses. Madame Grandin is one, and I can find another at my place.”
Diane remained silent; a great lump was rising in her throat. But the idea came into her mind, “This is the first thing he has asked me. Shall I refuse him and make it unpleasant for him when he is doing me the greatest honor in the world?”
They remained sitting on the bench and exchanging the sweet nothings of lovers until the faint sound of the church bell again startled Diane, when, as before, she rose and ran panting through the park and along the streets until she reached the lodgings. Once more she found them all at supper, and, as before, she sat pale and silent and eating no supper, but her eyes were glorified. Jean looked at her with a heavy heart; he knew without telling that she had seen the Marquis.
When supper was over, the table cleared away, and they were about starting for the little music hall, Diane, looking about her, said in her most dramatic manner:
“Listen, all of you. I said I knew something splendid would befall me in Bienville. It has come this afternoon. The Marquis Egmont de St. Angel asked me to marry him, to become his wife, to be a marquise. Oh, how glad I was!”
Madame Grandin clasped Diane in her arms, while Grandin sank on a chair overwhelmed with the magnificence of the thing. Neither Jean nor François spoke.