He looked down the room to the spot where Madelon and Cydalise were standing, side by side, admiring Madame Frehlter's poodle. Madelon could afford to be civil to the poodle before company. The contrast between the two girls was sufficiently striking. Cydalise was fair and bright-looking--Mademoiselle Frehlter was square and ungainly of figure, swarthy of complexion, dark of brow. "He could not but be charmed," repeated the old man, with feeble gallantry. He was thinking of the joining together of Beaubocage and Cotenoir; and it seemed a very small thing to him that such a union of estates would involve the joining of a man and woman, who were to hold to each other and love each other until death should part them. "It shall be no marriage of convenience," said the Baron, in a generous spirit; "my daughter is somewhat ill-tem--that is to say, my daughter finds her life somewhat dull with her old father and mother, and I think she might be happier in the society of a husband. I like your son; and my wife, too, likes him better than any other young man of our acquaintance. Madelon has seen a good deal of him when she has been home from the convent in her holidays, and I have reason to think she does not dislike him. If he likes her and she likes him, and the idea is pleasing to you and madame, we will make a match of it. If not, let it pass; we will say no more." Again the seigneur of Beaubocage assured his friend that Gustave would be enchanted with the proposal; and again it was of Cotenoir that he thought, and not of the heart or the inclinations of his son. This conversation took place late in autumn, and at the new year Gustave was to come. Nothing was to be said to him about his intended wife until he arrived; that was a point upon which the Baron insisted. "The young man may have fallen in love with some fine young person in Paris," he said; "and in that case we will say nothing to him of Madelon. But if we find him with the heart free, and inclined to take to my daughter, we may give him encouragement."