The princess looked very grave. “You are right from that point of view,” said she. “He really terrifies me often. But I think he would become more prudent if obliged to be so. It is a necessity of which one is at last convinced by living in Russia.”
The conversation was continued for some time in a low tone. Then the princess declared herself fatigued, and an exception was made to her custom of prolonging the evening to a late hour, and they all retired.
Fleurange was about to do the same when the princess stopped her and asked the reason of her simplicity of dress. “I am particularly desirous,” she said, “that they who in some sort aid me in doing the honors of my salon should be dressed stylishly—and I pay them accordingly,” she added with the want of delicacy sometimes to be remarked even in well-bred ladies with regard to their dependents. It was a fault the princess was not often guilty of, but this side of her nature became apparent when she was in a bad humor.
Fleurange blushed. “I beg your pardon, princess,” said she, “but I cannot comply with your request—I cannot,” she repeated, her eyes filling with great tears.
“What does all this mean?”
Fleurange hesitated an instant, but, obedient to her impulses, always frank and simple, she related what the princess had hitherto been ignorant of—the ruin of her family, and the motive that had induced her to accept the place she now occupied.
“If I am obliged to expend the money I receive from you in adorning my person; if I can only aid my relatives at the risk of displeasing you, then—then—” And her voice faltered. “Alas! madame, I should be obliged to seek elsewhere the means of—”
The princess did not allow her to finish. The young girl’s accent, as she gave her simple account, excited her sympathies; her dissatisfaction vanished, and the result of this little scene was that Fleurange was allowed not only to dispose of a part of her salary as she pleased, but the whole, on one condition, which the princess insisted upon, and to which Fleurange was at length forced to consent—that the princess, and she alone, should have the direction of her young companion’s dress and ornaments.
From that time Fleurange was profusely provided with all that could satisfy the singular requirement of her protectress, and at the same time gratify her generosity, keenly stimulated by her interest in the account she had just heard. Fleurange yielded with a mixture of gratitude and repugnance, endeavoring to reconcile the simplicity of her tastes with the elegant taste of the princess. The result, however, was that, when she appeared for the first time in public, the effect she produced far surpassed the expectations of her who seemed to attach so much importance to enhancing her beauty.
Elegance and luxury seemed really to be necessary elements of the Princess Catherine’s existence, and as an inferior article of furniture or hangings of any plainness would have been considered out of place in her apartments, so Fleurange’s simple black dress would have marred the prevailing harmony, and she regarded it as a matter of importance to change what injured the general effect. But she was by no means disposed Fleurange should cease to be her protégée, which gratified her pride as well as her kind heart.