“Really,” answered Stephanie, “I do not know that I ought to consent to it; an hour's walk beneath a burning sun——”
“I fear not the sun any more than yourself,” interrupted de Berville, “and perhaps the support of my arm may not be altogether unserviceable to you.”
Leopoldine permitted them to depart, in spite of the reproaches with which her conscience now addressed her. She remained at home, sad and humiliated, arguing within herself, that M. de Berville ought to have joined her in endeavoring to prevent Stephanie from going, whom, for the first time, she secretly accused of wishing to appear virtuous at her expense. Madame Dorothée very shortly added to her discontent, by reflections which her niece was far from wishing to hear.
“Don't reckon, Leopoldine, upon having made any impression on M. de Berville,” said she; “decidedly, the more I observe him, the more I am assured he does not dream of marrying you.”
“With all the respect which I owe to your sagacity, aunt,” responded Leopoldine, in a peevish tone, “permit me to be of a different opinion: it is impossible but that the assiduities of M. de Berville must have some object, and as to that object there cannot be any doubt. If he delays to make it known, it is because he wishes to study me, as my sister says. I do not think I have any cause for alarm on the subject.”
“Suppose it should be of your sister he thinks——”
“She would be nearly the last he would think of,” exclaimed the young maiden, breaking out into a fit of immoderate laughter. “What! a young damsel of thirty-two, who has gray hairs, wrinkles, (for she has wrinkles round the eyes—I have seen them plain enough;) a young lady in fact, whom people take to be my mother! what an idea! But I see what has suggested it; it is that promenade at noonday—a mere act of politeness, at which M. de Berville was, I doubt not, enraged at heart.”
“Not so; that circumstance has only weight from that which preceded it. I grant, my dear niece, that there is between you and your sister a difference of fifteen years; and that certainly is a great difference; you dazzle at first sight; but only whilst they regard her not. M. de Berville was in the beginning charmed by your graces; but if I am not deceived, it is not those which retain him here. You have been to him as the flambeau which conducts into the well illuminated hall, which instantly makes pale, by outshining, the light of the flambeau. Pardon me for the comparison.”
“That is to say, it is by me he has been drawn to my sister, and now she has eclipsed me.”
“She cannot eclipse you in beauty, nor youthfulness; but her mind, her knowledge, the qualities of her heart, appear perhaps advantages sufficiently precious to cause to be forgotten those which she lacks; and I shall not be astonished to hear that M. de Berville had taken a liking to, and had actually espoused her, in spite of her thirty-two years.”