"Julia!" he would exclaim, "you don't make noise enough. Smash a vase."
And a vase she did smash; whereupon her father kissed her with enthusiasm.
This method of education assumed a graver character as the child grew older. Her father's affection became shaded with a species of gallantry. He took her with him to the Bois, to the races, to the theater. She had not a fancy that he did not anticipate and gratify. At thirteen years of age, she had her horse, her groom, and a carriage bearing her monogram. Already ill, and having perhaps a presentiment of his death, the unfortunate man overwhelmed that beloved daughter with the tokens of his baleful affection. He was thus blunting all her tastes by too precocious satiety, as if he had intended to leave her no taste save for the forbidden fruit.
Julia wept over him with furious transports, and preserved for his memory a fervid worship. She had a private room which she filled with the portraits of her father and with a thousand personal souvenirs, around which she kept up flowers.
Madame de Trecœur, like the greater number of young girls who marry their cousins, had married very young. She was left a widow at twenty-eight, and her mother, the Baroness de Pers, who was still living, and who was even of the liveliest, was not long in suggesting discreetly to her the propriety of a second marriage. After having exhausted the practical and, in fact, quite sensible reasons that seemed to urge that course, the baroness then came down to the sentimental reasons:
"In good faith, my poor child," she said, "you have not had, up too this time, your just share of happiness in this world. I would not speak ill of your husband, since he is dead; but, entre nous, he was a horrid brute. Mon Dieu! charming at times, I grant you,—since I have been caught myself—like all worthless scamps! but in fact, beastly, beastly! Well, certainly, I shall not undertake to say that marriage is ever a state of perfect bliss; nevertheless it is the best thing that has been imagined up to this time, to enjoy life decently among respectable people. You are in the flower of your age—you are quite good-looking, quite—and, by the way, it will do you no harm to wear your skirts a little higher up behind, with a proper sort of bustle; for you don't even know what they wear now, my poor pet. Here, look! It's horrible, I know; but what can we do? we must not attract attention. In short, what I meant to tell you is that you still have all that is necessary, and even more than is necessary, to fix a husband—if indeed there are any that can be fixed, which I hope is the case—otherwise, we should have to despair wholly of Providence, if it did not have some compensation in store for us after all our trials. It is already a manifest sign of its kindness that you should have recovered your embonpoint, my darling! Kiss your mother. Come, now, when is our pretty little woman going to be married?"
There was no maternal exaggeration whatever in the compliments which the baroness was addressing to Clotilde. All Paris looked upon her with the same eyes as her mother. She had never been so attractive as now, and she had always been infinitely so. Her person, reposed in the peace of her mourning, had then the bright lustre of a fine fruit, ripe and fresh. Her black eyes full of timid tenderness, her pure brow crowned with splendid and life-like braids, her shoulders of rosy marble, her particular grace of a young matron, at once handsome, loving, and chaste—all that, joined to a spotless reputation and to sixty thousand francs a year, could not fail to bring forward more than one pretender. And indeed they sprang up in legions. Reason, and public opinion itself, which had done full justice to her husband and to herself, were both urging her to a second wedding. Her own private feelings, whatever might be their natural delicacy, did not seem likely to prove an obstacle, for there was nothing in her heart that was not true. She had been faithful to her husband, she had shed sincere and bitter tears over that wretched companion of her youth; but he had exhausted and worn out her affection, and without ever joining her mother in her posthumous recriminations against Monsieur de Trecœur, she felt that she had no further duty to fulfill toward him but that of prayer.
She had, however, been for many months a widow, and she still continued to oppose to the solicitations of the baroness, a resistance of which the latter sought in vain to ascertain the mysterious cause. One day she fancied she had discovered it.
"Confess the truth," she said to her; "you are afraid to cause some annoyance to Julia. Now, if that is so, my dear daughter, it is pure folly. You cannot have any serious scruple on that score. Julia will be very rich in her own right, and will have no need of your fortune. She will herself marry in three or four years (much pleasure do I wish her husband, by the way!); and see a little in what a nice situation you will find yourself then! But, mon Dieu! are we never going to be done with them? After the father, here is the daughter now! Eh! mon Dieu! let her erect chapels with her father's portraits and spurs as much as she likes—that's her business; I am certainly not the one to enter into competition with her. But she must at least allow us to live in peace! What! You could not dispose of your person without her leave! Then if you are her slave, my dear child, show me the door at once! You could not do anything more agreeable to her for she cannot bear the sight of me, your daughter! And then, after all, in all candor, what possible objection can she have to your getting married again? A step-father is not a step-mother; it's quite another thing. Eh! mon Dieu! her step-father will be charming to her—all men will be charming to her; I predict her that; she may feel easy about it! Now, will you admit that it is the true cause of your hesitation?"
"I assure you that it is not, mother," said Clotilde.