She held out her little hands to the two young men. "Oh, naughty Maurice! You know very well that I shall never forget these three days we have passed together, when you have been so good to me and taught me so very much."
Maurice kissed her boldly; Jean put his lips very respectfully to the warm, soft little hand.
The train stopped and the Darbois family were in an instant reunited. Mlle. Frahender declined escort to her convent. François Darbois installed her in a landau, and after he had thanked her heartily for her kindness to his daughter, gave the address to the coachman, who drove away with the old lady holding her inevitable little package on her lap, and steadying her old-fashioned little attaché case on the seat opposite.
The Darbois family took their places in another carriage. Esperance must sit between her father and mother, leaning close to them, caressing them endlessly, and dropping her little blonde head on her mother's shoulder.
"Oh! how long it seems since I have seen you," she kept repeating.
She held her father's hand and pressed it against her heart. It seemed to her suddenly as if she had suffered from that absence of three days, and yet she could not specify at what moment she had wished herself back with them. She recounted all the little events that had taken place during the three eventful days.
"You know," she explained to her father, "I am bringing you all the newspaper articles. Then I have the letter from the President of the Committee, and the beautiful presents from the King and Queen."
The carriage stopped at the Boulevard Raspail. The concierge came forward.
"I am sure I hope that Mademoiselle has had a success."
Esperance looked at her with astonishment, but the woman's husband came up with a newspaper in his hand, which he unfolded to display the picture of Esperance just beneath the headlines.