"But you know, Louise," she said, beginning quite seriously at the beginning, "papa would never have consented, never, never--poor papa! Indeed, I should never have asked him; it would only have been one humiliation more for him, poor papa! So it was well he was dead, if it was God's will for it to be. Of course I had my dreams, like everybody. I was so blond, so blond, and so small; it seemed like a law I should marry a _brun_, a tall, handsome _brun_, with a mustache and a fine barytone voice. That was how I always arranged it, and--you will laugh--but a large, large house, and numbers of servants, and a good cook, but a superlatively good cuisine, and wine and all that, and long, trailing silk dresses, and theater every night, and voyages to Europe, and--well, everything God had to give, in fact. You know, I get that from papa, wanting everything God has to give! Poor papa! It seemed to me I was to meet him at any time, my handsome _brun_. I used to look for him positively on my way to school, and back home again, and whenever I would think of him I would try and walk so prettily, and look so pretty! _Mon Dieu!_ I was not ten years old yet! And afterward it was only for that that I went into society. What should girls go into society for otherwise but to meet their _brun_ or their blond? Do you think it is amusing, to economize and economize, and sew and sew, just to go to a party to dance? No! I assure you, I went into society only for that; and I do not believe what girls say--they go into society only for that too. "You know at school how we used to _tirer la bonne aventure._[1] Well, every time he was not _brun, riche, avenant_, Jules, or Raoul, or Guy, I simply would not accept it, but would go on drawing until I obtained what I wanted. As I tell you, I thought it was my destiny. And when I would try with a flower to see if he loved me,--_Il m'aime, un peu, beaucoup, passionément, pas du tout_,--if it were _pas du tout_, I would always throw the flower away, and begin tearing off the leaves from another one immediately. _Passionément_ was what I wanted, and I always got it in the end. [Footnote 1: _La bonne aventure_ is or was generally a very much battered foolscap copy-book, which contained a list of all possible elements of future (school-girl) happiness. Each item answered a question, and had a number affixed to it. To draw one's fortune consisted in asking question after question, and guessing a number, a companion volunteering to read the answers. To avoid cheating, the books were revised from time to time, and the numbers changed.]