"I was waiting, however--I was waiting for his return. I wished to have with him a very serious conversation. It is quite true that I felt like fainting with fear at the mere thought of that explanation; but I was none the less resolved to speak, and I would speak. It seemed to me impossible that he had not thought of me sometimes out there in China and Cochin China. We had always loved each other (till the unhappy day on which I had become marriageable) with a tender and faithful affection! I knew that he would arrive in Paris during the night of the 2d or 3d of April. Very certainly the day after he would come and see us. And so, in fact, towards two o'clock he came. Mamma hadn't finished dressing; I was alone. I ran to him. 'Ah, how glad I am to see you!' and I kissed him with effusion. Then he, very much moved, yes, very much moved, kissed me, and began to say to me such nice and pretty things that I felt my heart melting. Ah, if mamma hadn't come for five minutes--I would only have asked for five minutes!--and how quickly it would have turned into love-making our little explanation!" "Yes, that is true. The impulse that threw you into my arms was so sincere. Ah, very certainly it was that day, at that moment, that I began to love you. And then I looked at you. You were no longer the same. There was such great and happy change." "He does not dare say it, Aunt Louise, but I will say it: I had become fatter. Ah, when I think that I might be Duchess of Courtalin if I had remained thin. Those men! Those men! What wretches! But mamma came in, then papa, and then my brother George. No explanation possible! There they all were engaged in an odious conversation on the comparative merits of the English and French boats--the English ones are faster, the food on the French ones is better, etc. It was charming! At the end of an hour Gontran went away, but not without giving me a very tender and eloquent hand-shake. I could wish nothing more speaking than that hand-shake. But mamma, who was observing us attentively, had clearly seen our two hands, after having found a way to say very pleasant things, had had a great deal of trouble in separating. I expected, of course, to see him the next day. Did you come?" "No." "And the day after that?" "No, nor then." "At last, after three days, mamma took me to the races at the Bois de Boulogne. We arrived, and there at once, two steps from me, I saw him. But no, it was no longer he; frigid greeting, frigid good-day, frigid hand-shake, frigid words, and very few of them--scarcely a few sentences, awkward and embarrassed. Then he was lost in the crowd, and that was all. He did not appear again. I was dumfounded, overcome, crushed." "But it was your mother who--" "Yes, I know now; but I did not know that day. Yes, it was mamma. Oh, must I not love mamma to have forgiven her that?"