She had only seen him for ten minutes that morning, in the presence of the Duchesse de Vannes, but though her confusion had been too great to let her eyes meet his, the few soft grave words he had spoken, and the touch of his lips on her hand, had left with her an ineffable sense of protection and affection received. If it were not for love, why should he have paused on his way to thrust back the gates of the convent and take her to himself?
As for herself, the timid, pure, half-unconscious feeling which he had awakened in her was growing in strength with every hour now that it had recognised its own existence and been permitted its expansion without shame. It remained as shy and fearful as a freshly captured wood-dove, but it had in it all the elements of an intense and devoted passion.
She did not hear the child’s chatter, which rippled on like a little brook, asking her a thousand questions of what she would do, of what she would wear, of what she would give away. Blanchette was herself half sympathetic, half envious; disposed to resent her cousin’s sudden and splendid change of destiny, yet inclined to rejoice in it, as it would secure to herself a spectacle, a new costume, and a costly gift. She kept looking at the girl critically, with her head on one side, and affecting to help her only hindered her, as she dressed for the first ceremonious dinner at which she had ever assisted.
‘To think you can dress yourself; how queer!’ cried the little censor. ‘I cannot put on a stocking, nor Toinon either. I never mean to do it. Mamma could not to save her life. How many women will you have? Two? three? Never let your maids carry your jewel-box; have it always put in the train by your major-domo, between two footmen. Mamma says all the robberies are done by the maids. What are you going to put on? You have only white frocks. Don’t you long to wear satin and velvet? Oh, you are so stupid; you ought to marry a shepherd, and wear lambs’-wool that you spun yourself. You must not be so simple. A Countess Othmar ought to be very magnificent. The finance is nothing if it do not look gorgeous. Oh, what are you doing? You must not put a black sash on; you are a fiancée. Have you got nothing but black? Wait a minute; I will run and get one of mine.’
‘I have always worn something black or grey since my grandmother died,’ said Yseulte, a little sadly.
But Blanchette made a pirouette.
‘Henri IV. est sur le Pont-Neuf!’ she cried. ‘Oh, you silly! You were Cendrillon yesterday; now you are the prince’s betrothed. Yesterday you were a little brown grub; now you are a butterfly. I will go and get my sash.’
The child flew out of the room and left Yseulte standing before the mirror, looking shyly at her own reflection as though she saw a stranger. She felt, indeed, a stranger to herself; so long she had been resigned to the religious life, so long she had been accustomed to regard obscurity, neglect, sadness, loneliness, as her natural lot; so long she had been trained to submission, lectured to the shade and the silence of resignation, that to be thus suddenly called out into the light, and lifted on to a pedestal, dazzled and almost paralysed her.
It seemed to her as though it could never be herself, Yseulte de Valogne, to whom her cousin had said, with an admiration that was almost reverence: ‘You will be the most enviable woman in Europe. Do you understand all you have done for yourself?’