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Updated: June 25, 2025
And, as he sat listening to de Windt's calm prophecies of Nathalie's success, next winter, as a débutante, he cursed volubly, under his breath, to think how soon every wretched roué in the city would be free to pollute the spotless child with glances, with words, even, in dances, with a clasp of her waist!
Caroline knew nothing of what Ivan took away with him; nor dreamed that, from this hour, Nathalie's load became the secret burden of another.
The caretaker, consumed with jealousy because one of the flirters had flirted also with her daughter, told everybody that Nathalie Verando had been kissed in the olive woods. Jim Schuyler's cook was a friend of Luciola, the curé's housekeeper. When she heard of the incident in the Verando family, she told Nathalie's aunt that Mrs.
Bressant, who was the most charming of the comedians and a general favourite, came up to me and said: "We must arrange this little matter, dear Mademoiselle, for Nathalie's short arms are really very long. Between ourselves, you were a trifle hasty, but I like that, and then that child is so droll and so pretty," he added, pointing to my little sister.
Again, the garden was out of order; the trees before the old gentleman's window must be cut down, because their shade would doubtless cause a dampness in the house prejudicial to Nathalie's health; or the surrey was to be changed for a landau. Nathalie was a coquette. Accustomed to charm, she listened with smiles to the numerous protestations of admiration which she received.
Their few words were as simple and as awkward as inexperience could make them; but they were afterwards gone over, a hundred times, at least, by Ivan, who, at each repetition, became more impressed by the brilliance, the wit, the savoir-faire, the repose of Mademoiselle Nathalie's brief and stumbling formalities. Then then Madame Dravikine was calling her daughter. A whistle blew.
Nor could she find in her guide and mentor that mother, whom she so little knew, either comfort or refuge in her unhappiness. Madame Dravikine, indeed, was disgusted and disappointed. The tale of Ivan's mad devotion and of her daughter's imprudence, had spread through the city, losing nothing in the telling. And Nathalie's open stubbornness and rebellion confirmed it only too clearly.
Nathalie's husband had been a man without a name and without means, but cleverly steering towards Liberalism or Conservatism, according to which best suited his purpose, he managed to make a comparatively brilliant judicial career. Some peculiarity which made him attractive to women assisted him when he was no longer in his first youth.
Nathalie, therefore, always believed that she was Minna's sister, and consequently could not understand why she should not have the same rights as my wife, who always treated her in an authoritative way, as a strict mother would do, and seemed to think herself justified in complaining of Nathalie's behaviour.
She was a Societaire of the Comedie, old, spiteful, and surly. Regina, in trying to avoid the train of Marie Roger's cloak, stepped on to Nathalie's, and the latter turned round and gave the child such a violent push that she was knocked against a column on which was a bust. Regina screamed out, and as she turned back to me I saw that her pretty face was bleeding. "You miserable creature!"
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