And the girl moved on ahead, passing through the room where her ancestors had loved Alsace so much.
Madame Oberlé turned away; sitting near the window she leaned her head against the panes where as a child she had seen the sleet and the ice form into ferns, and the sun, and the rain, and the vibrating airs of summer-time, and all the land of Alsace.
"Odile Bastian! Odile!" repeated the poor woman. The bright face, the smile, the dresses of the young girl, the corner of Alsheim where she lived—a whole poem of beauty and moral health rose in the mother's mind; and with an effort she held to it jealously, in order to forget the other love-affair on account of which she had come here.
"Why did not Jean confide in me?" she thought. "This is a kind of compensation for the other. It reassures me. Jean will not leave us, since the strongest of ties binds him to the country. Perhaps we shall succeed in overcoming my husband's obstinacy. I will make him see that the sacrifice we are making, Jean and I, in accepting this German——"
Meanwhile laughter came from the next room, unfurnished except for the two chairs on which Lucienne and Farnow were sitting. Lucienne, with an elbow on the balustrade of the open window, the lieutenant a little behind gazing at her, and speaking with an extraordinary fervour; sometimes there was laughter. This laughter hurt Madame Oberlé, but she did not turn round. She still saw in the changing blue of the Alsatian fields the consoling image evoked by Lucienne.
Wilhelm von Farnow was speaking during this time, and was using to the best advantage this hour, which he knew would be short, in which he was permitted to learn to know Lucienne. She was listening to him as if dreaming, looking out across the roofs, but really attentive, and accentuating her answers with a smile and a little grimace. The German said:
"You are a glorious conquest. You will be a queen among the officers of my regiment, and already there is a woman of French family, but born in Austria, and she is ugly. There is an Italian, and some Germans, and some Englishwomen. You unite in yourself all their separate gifts—beauty, wit, brilliancy, German culture, and French spontaneity. As soon as we are married I shall present you in the highest German society. How did you develop in Alsheim?"
Her nature was still proud rather than tender, and these flatteries pleased her.
At this hour, profiting by the absence of M. Joseph Oberlé at Barr, M. Ulrich had gone up to see his nephew Jean. The days were drawing near when the young man would go to the barracks. It was necessary to tell him about the unsuccessful meeting with Odile Bastian's father. M. Ulrich, after having hesitated a long time, finding it harder to destroy young love than to start for a war, went to see his nephew and told him everything.