The Marquise looked at her in astonishment.She loved her like an egotistical mother, proud of her beauty, as a person is proud of a fortune, too pretty still herself to become jealous, too indifferent to plan the schemes with which they charged her, too clever, nevertheless, not to have full consciousness of her daughter's value.
"I am listening, my child," she said; "what is it?"Yvette gave her a piercing look, as if to read the depths of her soul and to seize all the sensations which her words might awake.
"It is this.Something strange has just happened.""What can it be?"
"Monsieur de Servigny has told me that he loves me."The Marquise, disturbed, waited a moment, and, as Yvette said nothing more, she asked:
"How did he tell you that? Explain yourself!"Then the young girl, sitting at her mother's feet, in a coaxing attitude common with her, and clasping her hands, added:
"He asked me to marry him."
Madame Obardi made a sudden gesture of stupefaction and cried:
"Servigny! Why! you are crazy!"
Yvette had not taken her eyes off her mother's face, watching her thoughts and her surprise.She asked with a serious voice:
"Why am I crazy? Why should not Monsieur de Servigny marry me?"The Marquise, embarrassed, stammered:
"You are mistaken, it is not possible.You either did not hear or did not understand.Monsieur de Servigny is too rich for you, and too much of a Parisian to marry." Yvette rose softly.She added:
"But if he loves me as he says he does, mamma?"Her mother replied, with some impatience: "I thought you big enough and wise enough not to have such ideas.Servigny is a man-about-town and an egotist.He will never marry anyone but a woman of his set and his fortune.If he asked you in marriage, it is only that he wants--"The Marquise, incapable of expressing her meaning, was silent for a moment, then continued: "Come now, leave me alone and go to bed."And the young girl, as if she had learned what she sought to find out, answered in a docile voice: "Yes, mamma!"She kissed her mother on the forehead and withdrew with a calm step.
As she reached the door, the Marquise called out: "And your sunstroke?" she said.
"I did not have one at all.It was that which caused everything."The Marquise added: "We will not speak of it again.Only don't stay alone with him for some time from now, and be very sure that he will never marry you, do you understand, and that he merely means to--compromise you."
She could not find better words to express her thought.Yvette went to her room.Madame Obardi began to dream.Living for years in an opulent and loving repose, she had carefully put aside all reflections which might annoy or sadden her.Never had she been willing to ask herself the question.--What would become of Yvette?
It would be soon enough to think about the difficulties when they arrived.She well knew, from her experience, that her daughter could not marry a man who was rich and of good society, excepting by a totally improbable chance, by one of those surprises of love which place adventuresses on thrones.
She had not considered it, furthermore, being too much occupied with herself to make any plans which did not directly concern herself.
Yvette would do as her mother, undoubtedly.She would lead a gay life.Why not? But the Marquise had never dared ask when, or how.
That would all come about in time.
And now her daughter, all of a sudden, without warning, had asked one of those questions which could not be answered, forcing her to take an attitude in an affair, so delicate, so dangerous in every respect, and so disturbing to the conscience which a woman is expected to show in matters concerning her daughter.
Sometimes nodding but never asleep, she had too much natural astuteness to be deceived a minute about Servigny's intentions, for she knew men by experience, and especially men of that set.So at the first words uttered by Yvette, she had cried almost in spite of herself: "Servigny, marry you? You are crazy!"How had he come to employ that old method, he, that sharp man of the world? What would he do now? And she, the young girl, how should she warn her more clearly and even forbid her, for she might make great mistakes.Would anyone have believed that this big girl had remained so artless, so ill informed, so guileless? And the Marquise, greatly perplexed and already wearied with her reflections, endeavored to make up her mind what to do without finding a solution of the problem, for the situation seemed to her very embarrassing.Worn out with this worry, she thought:
"I will watch them more clearly, I will act according to circumstances.If necessary, I will speak to Servigny, who is sharp and will take a hint."She did not think out what she should say to him, nor what he would answer, nor what sort of an understanding could be established between them, but happy at being relieved of this care without having had to make a decision, she resumed her dreams of the handsome Saval, and turning toward that misty light which hovers over Paris, she threw kisses with both hands toward the great city, rapid kisses which she tossed into the darkness, one after the other, without counting; and, very low, as if she were talking to Saval still, she murmured:
"I love you, I love you!"
