"One understands, my cherished" (click), "that this visit is a little triste for thee.... One who should have been here to welcome thee does not appear. To repress the feelings is convenable" (click) "in a young girl of good education, but nevertheless one cannot hide the oppression of the heart. Rest assured, my little one, that my Charles—who is to be thy Charles so soon"—Madame's playfulness, emphasized by the click described, was more than a little grisly—"suffers as thou dost. He is chagrined to the very soul, believe me! that he cannot be with thee here to-day. Detained in Belgium, at Mons-sur-Trouille (where he has a manufactory for the production of woolen fabrics)—by important business in connection with an immense order given by a Paris firm of" (click) "drapers, thou canst picture him counting the hours that must elapse before the happy moment of his return. He is ardent, my Charles—noble, sincere, religious, and candid. I, his mother, say to thee: Thou art happy" (click) "to have won the love of so estimable a young man!"
And with this maternal peroration two gray poplin sleeves went out and enfolded Mademoiselle de Bayard, and two rapid touches of Madame Tessier's mustache visited first her left cheek and then her right one. Fluttering like a caught robin, Juliette faltered:
"You are so good, dear Madame, but when did I win it?" She added, released from the imprisoning sleeves, and with a bright red rose of agitation blooming in the center of each pale cheek: "Alas! I refer to the love of M. Charles Tessier.... If I might know where he has seen me? ... I cannot recollect his ever having been presented to me. In my mind, Madame, your son has no form, no features.... It is terrible, but there you have the fact!"
The truth was out at last. Now that the room had left off whirling, Madame's benevolent smile shone forth unchanged. She clicked, and returned with archness that was labored.
"My Juliette, I comprehend. Thou wert just a little bewildered.... Thy father has not made it quite clear.... Ah, naughty M. le Colonel, I shall scold him by-and-by!"
"Pray, no!" Juliette's little hands went out entreatingly. "Only explain, dear, dearest Madame, for I am bewildered, as you say truly. My father's command that I should leave school, provide myself with a trousseau, and come here to be married—instantly—to M. Charles Tessier!—was so brusque—so sudden—that I might be pardoned for saying I have felt less like a young girl than a poor lamb, hurriedly taken from the fold and driven to the butcher's yard."
"Poor little lamb!" drolled Madame, still portentously playful, and displaying a gleaming double row of teeth between the parenthesis. Juliette felt more than ever like the lamb of her analogy, as she strove to read the meaning of the smile. Madame continued: "Too much boldness—an excessive display of sangfroid—my Charles has ever disliked in women. When I tell him how gentille thou art, how sensitive, and how spirituelle, he will say to me, 'My mother, thou hast chosen well! and when he sees thee...'"
Something in the well-powdered elderly face of the speaker sent an electrical shock of comprehension through Juliette's being, evoking the cry:
"Sees me.... But then ... he has never seen me?"
It was necessary to hold on with one's own eyes to Madame's, they so spun and whirled in their rather small, round orbits. Then they steadied, as though she had made her mind up. She said, and though the treacly suavity had gone out of her voice, Juliette liked it better: