Caroline really had a veneration for this man, whose character every one appreciated, but whose intelligence and delicacy every one did not fathom or divine. In spite, however, of the satisfaction in which their conversation had just ended, she sought in going over it again to herself to understand it in all its bearings. She thought quickly, and, while going about the drawing-room to do the honors,--within the limits of the favor and reserve which had been imposed upon her, and whose exact lines she had easily observed from the first,--she demanded of herself why the Marquis had seemed to waver among two or three successive ideas in speaking to her. At first he had appeared disposed to reproach her for believing in the flatteries of the Duke, then he had given her a friendly warning against the continuance of these attacks, and finally, as soon as she had expressed her displeasure at them, he himself had hastened to allay it. She had never seen him irresolute, and, if his language was frequently timid, his convictions were never so. "It must be," she thought, "that in the first place he considered me imprudent, and his brother likely to take advantage of the fact; in the second place, it must be that I am really more necessary to his much-loved mother, already, than I could have believed. At all events, there is a hidden something in this which I cannot understand, and which I suppose he will explain to me hereafter. Whatever it may be, I am free. Five hundred francs will not bind me a day, an hour, in a humiliating position. I have not yet sent off my answer to Justine." We see how far the honest, clear conscience of Mlle de Saint-Geneix was from seeking in the constrained silence of the Marquis an unbecoming sentiment or an instinct of jealousy. If the Marquis had been questioned at that moment, could he have answered with so much assurance, "With me it is only a respectful esteem and filial solicitude?" At that moment, in point of fact, M. de Villemer was by no means pleased with his brother, and listened to him with an impatience which was painful enough. The Duke, having entered the drawing-room with his mother, had come and seated himself near him behind the piano, an isolated and protected place, which was a favorite with the Marquis; here then the Duke began the following conversation, speaking in a low voice but in a very lively manner:-- "Well," he said, "you saw her alone just now; did you speak to her of me?" "But," replied M. de Villemer, "what singular persistency!"