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On the other hand, there was always one name on her lips Courtalin. Still Courtalin, and always Courtalin. He had all qualities, all virtues. Then he had just lost his aunt in Brittany, and he had inherited something. It was thought that he would only have a quarter of the property, and he had had three-quarters.
"Oh, you can laugh as much as you please! You know very well that but for this on what does fate depend? I should now be married and a duchess, it is true; but Duchess of Courtalin, and not Duchess of Lannilis. Well, perhaps that would have been better! At any rate, I wish to give Aunt Louise the authentic history of our marriage." "Tell away, if it amuses you," said Gontran.
Nothing simpler, as you see. You can go on." "Well, your mother was so skilfully persuasive that the day after, at the races, I gave that cold greeting." "And so I, that same day, on entering the house, threw myself into mamma's arms, exclaiming, 'Yes, I am willing to marry M. de Courtalin! Ah, how many times between that day and the 16th of May I threw myself into mamma's arms!
I say it to my shame, Aunt Louise, to my great shame, the thought of giving in came to me; and then, to be absolutely frank, it rather pleased me to become a duchess; so mamma made me out a list of all possible husbands for me, and there was no other duke in the list but M. de Courtalin. There was, of course, the little Count of Limiers, who would be duke some day. But when?
M. de Courtalin has a thousand sterling merits that you have not that you will never have; and then M. de Courtalin had a particularly good point in mamma's eyes: he did not find me too thin, and he asked for my hand in marriage. 'My child, she said 'my dear child! She had no need to finish; I had understood.
I was going to let slip an admirable chance. The Duke of Courtalin was the target of all the ambitious mothers a great name, a great position, a great fortune! I should deeply regret some day to have shown such disdain for advantages like these, etc. And to all these things, which were so true and sensible, I could find only one word to say: his name, Gontran, Gontran, Gontran!
Then he went and took his examination in the country at a little college at Douai; it was easier, and he passed at last. M. de Courtalin has never been flunked; he is everything that one can be at his age: bachelor, advocate, lawyer, and grave, exact, and severe in his language, and dressed always in a black frock-coat, with two rows of buttons, always all buttoned in short, a man of the past.
Mamma was, in short, pledged to Mme. de Courtalin, and I felt the circle tighten round me. The papers announced, in a covert but transparent way, that there was question of an alliance between two families of the Faubourg Saint-Germain, and they made it pretty clear that it concerned two important families. I already received vague congratulations, and I dared respond only by vague denials.
"And means " "It means a sort of unexplainable, absurd, and extravagant love that comes without its being possible to know why in short, Aunt Louise, exactly the love I have for him." "Much obliged! But you do not tell everything. You do not say that your mother desired your marriage with Courtalin " "Yes, of course; mamma was quite right.
I did nothing else. Mamma got used to it, and never saw me appear without mechanically opening her arms. 'Yes, I am willing, and sometimes, 'No, I am not. But the 'No, I am nots' became fewer and fewer. M. de Courtalin, besides, was perfect; a model of tact, of gentleness, and of resignation. He waited, always in his black frock-coat, always buttoned, with an inexhaustible patience.
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