‘It is her youth that is delightful to me,’ he replied abruptly. ‘I am old enough to need its charm. I should be glad if you would consent to our nuptials very soon—say within a fortnight. I have already instructed my solicitors to meet you and to make whatever settlements you and the Duc de Vannes may desire upon Mademoiselle de Valogne.’
‘What! carte blanche?’ thought Cri-Cri, with a wonder which she took care to conceal, whilst she objected that such speed as he desired was impossible, was quite unheard of, would be indecorous: there were so many things to be done; but in the end she relented, consented to name that day month, and reflected that he should pay for his haste in the marriage contract. It would make no difference to herself whether he settled ten millions or ten pence on her young cousin, but it seemed to her that she was not doing her duty unless, in condescending to ally herself with la Finance, she did not shear its golden fleeces unscrupulously.
In her own mind she reflected that it was as well the marriage should take place speedily, for she perceived that his heart was not much in it. She divined that some alien motive actuated him in his desire for it, and she would have regretted if any breach had occurred to prevent it; for, although she professed to her intimate friends that she disliked the alliance excessively, she was nevertheless very gratified at her own relative having borne off such a great prize as Othmar. One never knew either how useful such a connection as his might not become.
‘I would never have let her marry into the Juiverie,’ she said to her husband. ‘But Othmar is quite different; his mother was an English duke’s daughter, his grandmother was a de Soissons-Valette, he has really good blood.’
‘And besides that,’ said de Vannes savagely, ‘he is a man whom all Europe has sighed to marry ever since he came of age. Why do you talk such nonsense to me? It is waste of good acting!’
‘As you wasted your medallion,’ said his wife, with a malicious enjoyment. ‘If she had taken the veil, you would have been quite capable of eloping with her, the very infamy of the action would have delighted you. But Othmar will certainly not let you make love to his wife; he is just the sort of man to be jealous.’
‘Of Nadine Napraxine, not of his own wife!’ said de Vannes, with an angry laugh. ‘Marry them quickly, while he is in the mind, and before Madame Napraxine can spoil the thing. In six months’ time he will return to her, but that will not matter; our little cousin will be Countess Othmar, and will probably learn to console herself.’
‘You are not hopeless?’ said his wife, much amused. ‘Well, I do not think with you. I believe that Nadine Napraxine has never been anything to Othmar; that the child, on the contrary, is passionately in love with him; and that the marriage will be a very happy one.’
Alain de Vannes shrugged his shoulders. He was very angry that the matter had turned out as it had done; the more angry that it was wholly impossible for him to display or to express his discomfiture, and that he was compelled to be amiable to Othmar and to all the world in relation to it, and bear himself before everyone as the friend and guardian of his wife’s cousin. His fancy for her had been a caprice rather than anything stronger, but it was resentful in its disappointment and impotence, and might even be capable of some vengeance.