The excitement was too much for her. She felt herself small and feeble in the grip of an over-great happiness. And, covering her face with her crossed hands, as was her wont at moments of perturbation, she wept tears of delight. Some minutes passed in silence. She heard Guillaume open the garden-door. Steps approached, some one sat down beside her, a hand unlocked her fingers: it was Mme. de la Vaudraye. She shrank back imperceptibly. But Mme. de la Vaudraye said: “Gilberte, are you afraid of me?” And the voice was so gentle that Gilberte was quite stirred. She looked at her through her tears and hardly recognized her. Her features had lost their customary hardness, her countenance the expression of implacable pride that deprived it of all its charm. And this charm now showed itself in the eyes, which had lost their severity, in the pathetic wrinkles of the forehead, in all that sad and withered face. “Gilberte, you wished to be my daughter: do you wish it still?” She had no time to reply. Guillaume had rushed up to both of them and was kissing them by turns. And he said, fervently: “Let us love her, Gilberte. We owe her the greatest gratitude for what she is doing. It means the sacrifice of her most cherished ideas and she has consented to that sacrifice of her own accord.” “Come, Guillaume, don’t make me out better than I am!” protested Mme. de la Vaudraye, in a playful tone. “Are you quite sure that I have not merely yielded to sordid motives? If Gilberte had been a poor girl, without any money....” “Oh, madame,” said Gilberte, “that counts for so little!” “Yes, with you and Guillaume, who are young and think only of your happiness, but not with me, who have suffered so much from the change in my fortunes. I can’t help it: one cannot alter at my age; I have a name of which I am very vain; and my dream has always been to restore it to all its brilliancy.” She playfully stroked Gilberte’s hair: “And think of all my blandishments, from the very beginning, Mme. Armand! You can’t say that I wasn’t clever in getting round you and making you do what I wanted! Well, then, one day, you tell me that you have bought up my family estates and you offer to reinstate me as mistress of the Logis. How could I have the courage to refuse?” She displayed a sort of unspoken wish to make amends to Gilberte, a wish which her pride prevented her from revealing as openly as her heart would have prompted her, but which, nevertheless, appeared in her manner of confessing, as though in fun, the shabby side of her behaviour. Gilberte had too much delicacy of mind to take pleasure in this admission and replied: “It’s your son’s happiness which you have not had the courage to reject. It is so easy to tell that all your ambitions and all your hopes are only for him.” But Guillaume was less indulgent and exclaimed: