The Duc watched her with amusement. ‘Pardieu!’ he thought, ‘it is much more entertaining to give to the ingénue than to the belle petite. What wonder, what delight, what innocent gratitude!—and the others only box your ears if the diamonds be not big enough or the emeralds do not please them. Really we are fools.‘
Yseulte meanwhile had not spoken yet; what moved her so intensely was not the gift of the medallion itself, splendid though it was, but the idea that anyone had had so much remembrance of her. She had scarcely had more notice than a careless bow or a brief ’bon jour’ from her cousin’s husband in all her life, and now, he brought her this magnificent present! And yet, how much sooner she would have had Othmar remember to go and hear her sing!
‘Well, mignonne,’ said the Duc gaily. ‘You look as if you were not sure whether you were in earth or in heaven. We are not, when we look at you.’
‘It is most good of you; it is most beautiful,’ she said, with hesitation. ‘That you should have thought of me is so kind; but I fear I ought not to wear it; you know in two years’ time I am to enter the Carmelite communion.’
‘Nonsense! It is the bird of the Holy Spirit,’ said de Vannes, with an ambiguous smile. ‘I think you may wear it when you are an abbess—if ever you be an abbess. Ah, my child, it is a cruel thing to doom you to the religious life; only ugly women should go there, and you are so handsome, fillette,—you will be so handsome!’
‘Oh, no!’ she said, quickly; she blushed very much; she had been always told that it was a sin to think of any physical charms, and yet she had enough of the instincts of a beautiful woman in her to take an unconscious delight in the whiteness of her limbs, the thickness of her hair, the smile of her own eyes from a mirror.
‘Oh, yes!’ said de Vannes, still with that smile which vaguely hurt her. ‘You will be marvellously handsome, Yseulte; I think that is the chief reason why the ladies wish you in the cloister! It was certainly the reason why they would not take you to Othmar’s last night. To be sure you are not in the world, but in the country they might have made an exception; you are seen in our drawing-rooms.’
She lifted her eyes with eager appeal. ‘Did he ask me? Did he think of me?’ she said, under her breath.
The keen glance of the Duc flashed over her face, and grew harsh and suspicious.
‘Because he spoke to you once,’ he thought, ‘I suppose, though you be a young saint in embryo, you are not proof against his millions! You are all alike after all, you women, even in the bud.’