"Several years?"
"Hang it! You would not marry off Jacqueline at once?"
"Bah! many a girl, practically not as old as she, is married at sixteen or seventeen."
"Why! I fancied you thought so differently!"
"Our ways of thinking are sometimes altered by events, especially when they are founded upon sincere and disinterested affection."
"Like that of good parents, such as we are," added M. de Nailles, ending her sentence with an expression of grateful emotion.
For one moment the Baronne paled under this compliment.
"What did you say to Madame d'Argy?" she hastened to ask.
"I said we must give the young fellow's beard time to grow."
"Yes, that was right. I prefer Monsieur de Cymier a hundred times over.
Still, if nothing better offers—a bird in the hand, you know—"