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"I did not have one at all. It was that which caused everything." The Marquise added: "We will not speak of it again. Only don't stay alone with him for some time from now, and be very sure that he will never marry you, do you understand, and that he merely means to compromise you." She could not find better words to express her thought. Yvette went to her room. Madame Obardi began to dream.
He did not add what he would give, and Saval said good night to him as they reached the corner of the Rue Royale. Bougival and Love They had set the table on the veranda which overlooked the river. The Printemps villa, leased by the Marquise Obardi, was halfway up this hill, just at the corner of the Seine, which turned before the garden wall, flowing toward Marly.
The Marquise, astonished, again asked: "What in the world is the matter with you?" Then, forgetting all her plans and prepared phrases, the young girl hid her face in both hands and stammered: "Oh! mamma! Oh! mamma!" Madame Obardi stood by the bed, too much affected thoroughly to understand, but guessing almost everything, with that subtile instinct whence she derived her strength.
She first took a sheet of paper and wrote: "Bougival, Sunday, nine o'clock in the evening. "I die so that I may not become a kept woman. Then in a postscript: "Adieu, my dear mother, pardon." She sealed the envelope, and addressed it to the Marquise Obardi.
Then Yvette distinctly said: "No, mamma, I shall stay in the house to-day, and you know very well why, because I told you the other evening." Madame Obardi gave it no further thought, preoccupied with the thought of remaining alone with Saval. She blushed and was annoyed, disturbed on her own account, not knowing how she could find a free hour or two. She stammered: "It is true.
Madame Obardi had grasped her lover, and with her head uplifted toward him she cried to him: "Save her, oh, save her!" But Servigny turning around saw a letter on the table. He seized it with a rapid movement, and read the address.
And when night came, favorable to tragic situations, she had thought out a simple and subtile trick to obtain what she wanted: it was, brusquely, to say that Servigny had asked for her hand in marriage. At this news, Madame Obardi, taken by surprise, would certainly let a word escape her lips, a cry which would throw light into the mind of her daughter. And Yvette had accomplished her plan.
But Servigny, who had just said something in a low tone to Saval, replied to her: "No, it is all over. Come, go out a minute, just a minute, and I promise you that she will kiss you when you come back." And the Baron, taking Madame Obardi by the arm, led her from the room. Then Servigny, sitting-by the bed, took Yvette's hand and said: "Mam'zelle, listen to me." She did not answer.
Madame Obardi said in a trembling voice: "Listen, my daughter, there are some things which you do not yet understand. Well, don't forget don't forget-that I forbid you ever to speak to me about those things." But the young girl, brusquely taking the role of savior which she had imposed upon herself, rejoined: "No, mamma, I am no longer a child, and I have the right to know.
But to accomplish that she must have been of good birth, so that, when the exasperated father should approach her with having stolen his son's love, she might say in a proud voice: "My name is Yvette Obardi." She could not do this. And then, even that would have been a trite and threadbare method. The convent was not worth much more.
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