"It will not," Madame answered with the same grand air. "His Majesty will prevent it." And then with a word or two more she dismissed the Abbé and turned to me. She tapped me on the shoulder with her fan. "Ah! truant," she said, with a glance in which kindness and a little austerity were mingled. "I do not know what I am to say to you! Indeed, from the account Victor gave me yesterday, I hardly knew whether to expect you this evening or not. Are you sure that it is you who are here?"
"I will answer for my heart, Madame," I answered, laying my hand upon it.
Her eyes twinkled kindly.
"Then," she said, "bring it where it is due, Monsieur." And she turned with a fine air of ceremony, and led me to her daughter. "Denise," she said, "this is M. le Vicomte de Saux, the son of my old, my good friend. M. le Vicomte--my daughter. Perhaps you will amuse her while I go back to the Abbé."
Probably Mademoiselle had spent the evening in an agony of shyness, expecting this moment; for she curtesied to the floor, and then stood dumb and confused, forgetting even to sit down, until I covered her with fresh blushes by begging her to do so. When she had complied, I took my stand before her, with my hat in my hand; but between seeking for the right compliment, and trying to trace a likeness between her and the wild, brown-faced child of thirteen, whom I had known four years before--and from the dignified height of nineteen immeasurably despised--I grew shy myself.
"You came home last week, Mademoiselle?" I said at last.
"Yes, Monsieur," she answered, in a whisper, and with downcast eyes.
"It must be a great change for you!"
"Yes, Monsieur."
Silence: then, "Doubtless the Sisters were good to you?" I suggested.