When Yseulte was summoned to her cousin’s presence, the girl was startled to see how old she looked, for it was scarcely noon, and the handsome face which ‘Cri-Cri’ was wont to present to her own world had scarcely received its finishing touches from the various embellishing petits secrets shut up in their silver boxes and their china pots, which were strewn about under the great Dresden-framed mirror in front of her.
‘Good-day,’ she said, with irritation already in her voice, as Yseulte timidly kissed her hand. ‘Is this true what they tell me, that you receive presents without my knowledge and consent? Do you not know that it is perfectly inconvenable? Are you not taught enough of the world in your convent to be aware that a young girl cannot do such things without being disgraced eternally? What is it you have accepted? Is it a jewel? Can you realise the enormity of your action?——’ she paused, in some irritation and uncertainty. ‘Well, why do you not speak? Can you excuse yourself? What is it you have taken? From whom have you taken it? My people have told me you have a new and valuable jewel and refuse to say who gave it.’
‘My cousin, M. le Duc, gave it me,’ said Yseulte. ‘He said that I was to tell you if you asked me, but not anyone else.’
She spoke frankly, without any hesitation. The Duchesse stared at her, half rose in her amazement; her face was dark with anger for a moment, then cleared into a sudden laughter.
‘My husband!’ she echoed. ‘A fillette like you! And they say there are no miracles now! Do you absolutely mean to say that Alain gave you a jewel?——’
‘He was so good as to give me a locket—yes,’ murmured Yseulte, conscious that her cousin was angry, insolent, and derisive, and afraid that the Duc would be irritated at the issue of his kindness to her.
‘Pray, has he given you anything else?’ echoed Madame de Vannes. ‘Has he given you the diamonds he had bought for Mdlle. Rubis, or the coupé from Bender’s which he meant for la grande Laure?’
‘He has not given me anything else,’ answered Yseulte, to whom these terrible names conveyed no meaning.
‘Where is this locket? Show it me.’