But I feared that this vexation of which I was the involuntary cause might make her take a dislike to me, and I tried to repulse Irene's advances. When she insisted, I refused brusquely two or three times. The poor child said not a word, two great tears trickled down her cheeks, and she went silently and sat down at a distance from me and her mother. The latter tried to approach her, to console her, but Irene gently repulsed her caresses. That evening she ate nothing, and her nurse, who passed the night at her bedside, said that she had hardly slept, and had had several fits of silent weeping. M. de Fersen, who was not aware of the cause of his daughter's trifling ailment, made light of it and attributed it to the child's excessive nervous susceptibility. But Madame de Fersen gave me a look of irritation. I understood her. My avowal, by placing her on her guard, had made her avoid opportunities of being alone with me. Irene felt considerably aggrieved at this apparent coldness; the princess naturally looked upon me as the primary cause of her daughter's grief, and she loved her with mad devotion. Madame de Fersen had therefore good cause to dislike me. I resolved to end Irene's unhappiness. I took advantage of a moment when I was alone with Madame de Fersen to say to her: "Madame, forgive an insensate avowal. I regret it the more that it has not been alien to the sorrow and suffering of poor little Irene. I pledge you my word that I will never again say a single word which might trouble your maternal joys and thus expose me to forfeit your good graces which I so highly value." Madame de Fersen gave me her hand, with charming gratitude, and said: "I believe you, and thank you with all my heart, for you will thus no longer separate me from my daughter!" CHAPTER XV THE ADIEUX I soon regretted having promised Madame de Fersen never to address her a word of gallantry. Since she felt entirely at her ease with me, she appeared to me more and more charming, and each day I became more deeply in love. Constant to our meetings in the saloon, where we were almost always alone with Irene, our intercourse soon became quite friendly and intimate. I very skilfully displayed my total ignorance of politics so that they should be entirely banished in our conversations. Having mastered the situation, I succeeded in always bringing back our talks to the thousand subjects relating to tender or passionate sentiments. Sometimes, as though fearing the tendency of our intercourse, Madame de Fersen insisted on speaking politics. Then I would profess my ignorance, and the princess would wittily accuse me of acting like those lovers who pretend to dislike sport, in order that they may stay at home with the ladies while their husbands go tramping across the fields.