“Is that true? good, dear friend of friends! Did the Chevalier Bigot bless me, and curse La Pompadour for coming between him and his heart's desire! His heart's desire! but you do not know—you cannot guess what that means, dame?”
“As if I did not know a man's heart's desire! but I am a woman, and can guess! I was not the Charming Josephine for nothing, good Lady!” replied the dame, smiling, as the enraptured girl laid her fair, smooth cheek upon that of the old housekeeper.
“And did he look so pityingly as you describe, and bless me as I was praying, unwitting of his presence?” repeated she, with a look that searched the dame through and through.
“He did, my Lady; he looked, just then, as a man looks upon a woman whom he really loves. I know how men look when they really love us and when they only pretend to? No deceiving me!” added she. “When I was the Charming Josephine—”
“Ave Maria!” said Caroline, crossing herself with deep devotion, not heeding the dame's reminiscences of Lake Beauport. “Heaven has heard my prayers! I can die happy!”
“Heaven forbid you should die at all, my Lady! You die? The Intendant loves you. I see it in his face that he will never marry Angélique des Meloises. He may indeed marry a great marchioness with her lap full of gold and châteaux—that is, if the King commands him: that is how the grand gentlemen of the Court marry. They wed rank, and love beauty—the heart to one, the hand to another. It would be my way too, were I a man and women so simple as we all are. If a girl cannot marry for love, she will marry for money; and if not for money, she can always marry for spite—I did, when I was the Charming Josephine!”
“It is a shocking and sinful way, to marry without love!” said Caroline, warmly.
“It is better than no way at all!” replied the dame, regretting her remark when she saw her lady's face flush like crimson. The dame's opinions were rather the worse for wear in her long journey through life, and would not be adopted by a jury of prudes. “When I was the Charming Josephine,” continued she, “I had the love of half the gallants of Quebec, but not one offered his hand. What was I to do? 'Crook a finger, or love and linger,' as they say in Alençon, where I was born?”
“Fie, dame! Don't say such things!” said Caroline, with a shamed, reproving look. “I would think better of the Intendant.” Her gratitude led her to imagine excuses for him. The few words reported to her by Dame Tremblay she repeated with silently moving lips and tender reiteration. They lingered in her ear like the fugue of a strain of music, sung by a choir of angelic spirits. “Those were his very words, dame?” added she again, repeating them—not for inquiry, but for secret joy.
“His very words, my Lady! But why should the Royal Intendant not have his heart's desire as well as that great lady in France? If any one had forbidden my marrying the poor Sieur Tremblay, for whom I did not care two pins, I would have had him for spite—yes, if I had had to marry him as the crows do, on a tree-top!”