The Marquise laid down her embroidery. “And if I did, Lucienne, whose was the fault? I am astonished that a young girl of your birth and breeding should need a public reprimand to become acquainted with a matter so elementary. You, an affianced woman, to receive flowers from an unmarried man, who is already——” Lucienne rose. “Who is already—what, Madame?” “Doing his best to compromise you,” finished the Marquise unflinchingly. Lucienne was so angry that she laughed. “And Amelia, your niece?” she asked. “Is it Mr Trenchard’s intention to compromise us both? For he offered her flowers also, and she, though she too is affianced, accepted them without hesitation.” “Amelia,” retorted Madame de Château-Foix, “is English, and to English girls much is permitted—much, I must acknowledge, that seems strange to me. Sit down, my dear, and let us have this matter out. I have long intended to speak to you on the subject of Mr Trenchard, and since I stand to you in the place of your mother, you must allow me to do so. Lucienne, you are seeing a great deal too much of this young Englishman. He comes here day after day, he who before your arrival was scarcely more than an acquaintance of the household. You are always together; you permit yourself little secrets with him—ah, yes, I have noticed it—and it does not need very great perspicacity to guess for whom he is giving this ball to-morrow night.” “You mean, Madame, that he is giving it for me?” enquired Lucienne. “If so, this is the first that I have heard of it. And to think that I could prevent it assumes on my part a degree of intimacy with Mr Trenchard of which I trust even you, Madame, will not accuse me.” “I do not accuse you, my child, of anything more than thoughtlessness,” replied the Marquise gravely. “It is others who are apt to make accusations when they see you so listless when we are alone, so animated when we have company—provided the company include a young man or two, and especially if one of them be Mr Trenchard. No, Lucienne, I do not find your behaviour becoming, and I allow myself to speak thus frankly to you for your own sake, and a little, too, for Gilbert’s.” “Madame,” returned Lucienne, shaking a trifle but very stately, “I thank you for your concern about my conduct, and I pray you to excuse me.” She crossed the room, and added at the door, in tones less assured: “I only know this, that if Gilbert were here, he would not permit even you to speak to me as you have done!” Still less, when she was in the harbour of her own room, did Lucienne maintain her dignity of bearing. But the tears, when they came, were tears of rage. To accuse her of flirting with Trenchard! The preposterousness of the indictment stung her to a momentary vision of herself saying unanswerably to the Marquise: “If you only knew who has my heart, and will always have it!” . . . She hated Madame de Château-Foix, hated her!