The Comte de la Bérinière did not accept Adolphine's refusal of his offer so philosophically.
"Upon my word, my dear Gerbault," he exclaimed, "I have bad luck with your daughters! One marries just when I am about to ask for her hand. This one will have none of me; for I understand perfectly that her reply is simply a courteously disguised refusal. Well, I must make the best of it! I will take a trip into Italy, and try to console myself. The Italian women are not the equals of your daughters, but, at all events, they will distract my thoughts."
And, a few days later, the Comte de la Bérinière did, in fact, leave Paris.
But there was one person who was entirely unable to understand Adolphine's conduct: that was her sister Fanny. Learning that she had refused to marry either Monsieur de Raincy or the count, she went to see her one morning.
"Can what father tells me be true? You have refused to marry, when two magnificent partis have offered themselves? But, no, it can't be true; you haven't done that! or else you were sick at the time. Surely you didn't realize what you said, when you gave father that answer?"
"Indeed I did, my dear love," Adolphine replied, with a smile; "I knew perfectly well what I was saying; I had considered the matter fully when I refused to marry those gentlemen."
"Upon my word, I don't understand you! What reason, what motives, can have prompted your refusal? The Comte de la Bérinière has thirty thousand francs a year; and he would make you a countess. Just think of it—a countess! Isn't it perfectly bewildering to think of being called Madame la Comtesse?"
"It tempts me very little."
"To be sure, the count is no longer young; but, once married, if you knew, my dear girl, how little you think about your husband's age! Auguste might be sixty years old, now, and it would be all the same to me."
"My ideas are not at all the same as yours, as I have already told you."