“But it is so quiet and peaceful there,” continued Trimousette, blushing at her own boldness. “I think I—I—should like to go to Boury.”
It was the first time since their marriage that she had ever proffered a request; and the duke, like most imperial masters, was sometimes capable of a generous action. Besides, it occurred to him that Madame de Valençay would scarcely follow him to Boury.
All at once, while the duke stood hesitating, the duchess’s shyness vanished for one brief moment, and she became positively eloquent.
“I know all about it,” she said, clasping her hands eagerly; “it is by the sea, and there is a garden running to the cliffs, with plants so hardy that even the fierce sea winds cannot kill them. And there are beautiful woods and fields, and you—I—we could read in the mornings, and in the afternoons you could go out with your fowling piece, and in the evenings—” She stopped, trembling and quite unable to put into words the enchanting dream that rose before her. The quiet evenings tête-à-tête with the duke, he reading perhaps—he sometimes read the works of Monsieur Voltaire and Monsieur Rousseau. And she would sit by working at her tambour frame, with Diane, her faithful friend and sympathizer, at her feet. The vision that hovered in Trimousette’s mind was not reflected in the duke’s. He only saw that his quiet little duchess wished very much to go to Boury, and had made the longest and boldest speech he had ever heard from her lips.
“Then, madame,” he cried, “I will consider what you say. At all events, we will leave Paris, and possibly we may dwell, like a pair of turtle doves in a cage, for the space of a week at Boury.”
When the duke went out, banging the door after him, Trimousette actually danced about the room in her joy and triumph. She would have him at the little country place all to herself, and for one whole week. There would be no brazen intrusion of Madame de Valençay, and perhaps—perhaps the duke might forget her; and then would come true that dream of the honeymoon—for Trimousette had never had a honeymoon.
CHAPTER V
THE EARTHQUAKE
