The princess rose too. She seemed completely cured. It often happened that some extraordinary excitement effaced in a moment the last traces of a long and severe attack.
She put her arm around her son’s neck and drew him towards her. “George,” said she, when he returned to the place he had just left, “I ought not to trust any more in your promises, and yet there is one I beg you to make.”
“What is it, mother?”
“You will not yield to this folly without taking time for reflection?”
“I can promise that.”
“Moreover—listen to what I am going to ask—Swear you will never yield to it till you have obtained my consent.”
George hesitated. “That would be a very serious promise,” said he at length in a caressing tone, “if I did not know that in the end you never refuse anything to your spoiled child.”
“Come, come, George,” resumed his mother in an eager tone of distress, “do not make me repent of my indulgence. Give me your promise!”
“Well, mother, it should be acknowledged I ought to hesitate to give it—without ever having asked her, without even knowing how, after all, I should be received.”
The princess shrugged her shoulders.