‘I shall not think about it,’ replied Yseulte, simply.
‘But I imagine you read the journals?’
‘No, never.’
‘Never!’ he echoed, incredulously. ‘Why is that?’
She hesitated, then answered with a little blush: ‘He has told me not; he thinks they are foolish.’
‘Othmar?’ asked the Duc, with a laugh. ‘Do you obey him as you did the Mother Superior?’
‘Why not?’ said Yseulte gently, but coldly.
‘Why not!’ he said irritably. ‘Well, because you should begin as you wish to go on; you will not care for that state of servitude long; it would be better never to accustom him to it.’
‘Excuse me, my cousin, I see Madame de Tavernes is looking for me,’ said Yseulte, as she went to speak with a Duchesse whose genealogical tree mounted to the remote ages before the long-haired kings; a stately and powdered person who had issued from the retirement in which she usually lived to honour the first great entertainment of the daughter of Gui de Valogne.