The girl coloured and hesitated, then she said very low:
‘The other day—the day of the casket—you said he loved her—was it true?’
She glanced across the room at Nadine Napraxine as she spoke.
‘Did I say so?’ answered the Duchesse, with annoyance at herself. ‘Then I talked great nonsense. But how was I to know then that he was thinking of you? Listen to me, fillette,’ she continued, with more real kindness in her tone than the girl had ever heard there. ‘ You will hear all kinds of scandals, insinuations, stories of all sorts in the world that you will live in; never listen to them, or you will be perpetually irritated and unhappy. People say all sorts of untruths out of sheer idleness; they must talk. M. Othmar must certainly have some very especial esteem for you, or why should he choose you out of all womankind for his wife? That is all you have to think of; do not perplex yourself as to whom he may, or may not, have loved beforehand. All your care must be that he shall love no one else afterwards. You are tired, I think; go to bed, if you like: you can slip away unnoticed. You are only a child yet.’
Yseulte went at once, thankful for the permission, yet looking wistfully still at the delicate head of Nadine Napraxine, as it rose up from a collar of emeralds. Madame de Vannes passed to the music room, where a little operetta was being given, with a vague compassion stirring in her.
‘I am sure the old Marquise could not have given her more moral advice than I,’ she thought, ‘but I am afraid the silly child will have trouble, she is so old-fashioned. Why cannot she marry the man, and enjoy all he will give her, without perplexing herself as to what fancies he may have had for other people? What does it matter? She will have to get used to that sort of thing. If it be not Nadine who makes her jealous, it will be someone else; but one could not tell her that. How right I was not to send Blanchette and Toinon to a convent! The holy women make them so romantic, so emotional, so pleurnicheuses!’
At the same moment Nadine Napraxine said, when she had left her and was speaking to Melville of her:
‘She is very interesting. She will have plenty of character; he thinks that he is marrying a child; he forgets that she will grow up, and that very rapidly. Marriage is a hothouse for women who are young. I was married at her age; in three months’ time I felt as old—as old—as old as I do now. Nobody can feel older! You are sixty-five, you say, and you are so young. That is because you are not married and can believe in Paradise.’
‘You mean that I hope for compensation?’ said Melville, with his pleasant laugh.
‘Or that you keep your illusions. There is so much in that. People who do are always young. I do not think I ever had any to lose!’