"There it is! Until I came to know you, I had no thoughts of marriage. What did I want of wealth? If five years ago I had foreseen this moment, I should stand here with something better than promises." "Well, Vicomte," pursued the young girl, with singular composure, "you do me the honor to think very well of me: I hope you will not be vexed to find that prudence is one of my virtues. If I marry, I wish to marry well. It's not only the husband, but the marriage that counts. In accepting you as you stand, I should make neither a sentimental match nor a brilliant one." "Excellent. I love you, prudence and all. Say, then, that I present myself here three months hence with the titles and tokens of property amounting to a million and a half of livres, will you consider that I am a _parti_ sufficiently brilliant to make you forget that you don't love me?" "I should never forget that." "Well, nor I either. It makes a sort of sorrowful harmony! If three months hence, I repeat, I offer you a fortune instead of this poor empty hand, will you accept the one for the sake of the other?" My aunt stopped short in the path. "I hope, Vicomte," she said, with much apparent simplicity, "that you are going to do nothing indelicate." "God forbid, mademoiselle! It shall be a clean hand and a clean fortune." "If you ask then a promise, a pledge--" "You'll not give it. I ask then only for a little hope. Give it in what form you will." We walked a few steps farther and came out from among the shadows, beneath the open sky. The voice of M. de Treuil, as he uttered these words, was low and deep and tender and full of entreaty. Mlle. de Bergerac cannot but have been deeply moved. I think she was somewhat awe-struck at having called up such a force of devotion in a nature deemed cold and inconstant. She put out her hand. "I wish success to any honorable efforts. In any case you will be happier for your wealth. In one case it will get you a wife, and in the other it will console you." "Console me! I shall hate it, despise it, and throw it into the sea!" Mlle. de Bergerac had no intention, of course, of leaving her companion under an illusion. "Ah, but understand. Vicomte," she said, "I make no promise. My brother claims the right to bestow my hand. If he wishes our marriage now, of course he will wish it three months hence. I have never gainsaid him." "From now to three months a great deal may happen." "To you, perhaps, but not to me." "Are you going to your friends of the Visitation?" "No, indeed. I have no wish to spend the summer in a cloister. I prefer the green fields." "Well, then _va_ for the green fields! They're the next best thing. I recommend you to the Chevalier's protection."