“With Mr. Guildford!” she exclaimed. “Certainly not. What know I of him? Not as much as you do. I know him but as my uncle’s doctor—voilà tout.”
Her hastiness rather confirmed Cicely’s suspicion.
“I don’t think we do know him only as a doctor,” she said. “He comes here much more like a friend. I don’t think you need be indignant at my question, Geneviève. I see you are unhappy; you have not been like your self for some time, and it is not—it would not be unnatural if Mr. Guildford or any gentleman you meet were to—you know how I mean; you know you are very pretty.”
Geneviève flushed with pleasure.
“Do you really think so, Cicely?” she said shyly. “It gives me pleasure that you do. You are very kind. But it is not that. I think not that Mr. Guildford has any thought of whether I am pretty or ugly. And if he had—oh! no,” with a grave shake of the head, “I should not wish to marry him.”
But that she had taken the possibility into consideration was evident. And somehow Cicely did not feel sorry that her mother’s very mild attempt at match-making promised to fall to the ground.
“No,” said Geneviève to herself, when her cousin had left her, “no. I don’t want to marry Mr. Guildford. “Si on n’a pas ce qu’on aime, il faut aimer ce qu’on a, Mathurine used to say when I was a little girl. But I am not a little girl now.”
She sighed, and then glanced at herself in the looking-glass. What a strange girl Cicely was! Stéphanie Rousille would never have so frankly acknowledged another’s beauty! And again Geneviève felt the slight uncomfortable twinge of self-reproach. “But he is going away to-morrow,” she remembered. “When he returns, it will be the time for the marriage without doubt. He will think no more of me. I wish I had never come here.”