"Why, what do you think?" he said toward the end of the dinner, "Alfred de Rougement has left Paris. All his servants were dismissed this morning, and his steward received orders to meet him at Constantinople."
"Indeed?" replied Mme Delisle, gravely, while Geraldine turned deadly pale. "But this room is too close for you, my child."
"No, mamma," said she, quietly; "but we are forgetting all about our excursions. I should like to go to Versailles to-morrow, and take all the pretty places round Paris in turn."
"Bon!" cried Edouard; "that suits me. I shall be with you early, for I suppose you will go in the morning?"
"I want to breakfast at Versailles," replied Geraldine; "so we must go to bed early."
"That I vote to be an admirable proposition. At eleven I will go. But you are going to practice the new variations on Pastoris, are you not?"
"Yes; and you are going to sing, monsieur," said Geraldine, rising from table. "So come along, and ma and papa can play trictrac all the time."
That evening the cousins played and sang together until about ten, when they took tea, which Edouard, good-natured fellow, pretended to like prodigiously, drinking three cups of milk and water under the serious impression that it was the genuine infusion—a practice very common in France, where tea is looked on as dangerous to the nerves. Next day they went to Versailles, breakfasted at the Hôtel de France, visited the interminable galleries of pictures, and dined in Paris at a late hour. The day after they went to Montmorency.
Swiftly passed the hours, and days, and weeks, and soon Geraldine saw the last day which was to be her own. In twenty-four hours she was to leave her mother's home forever, to share that of a man to whom it must be supposed she was very much attached, but who was not exactly the companion suited to her. Geraldine was very grave that morning. It had been arranged that they were to go to St. Germain; and though the sky was a little dark, the young girl insisted on the excursion not being put off.
"This is the last day I shall have any will of my own," said she; "so let me exercise it."