She listened to him half reclining, drinking in his words and manifesting in her eyes a sort of celestial surprise.

But it seems—­who has not experienced it?—­that human happiness cannot touch certain heights without drawing the lightning upon itself.  Clotilde in the midst of her ecstasy shuddered suddenly and started to her feet.  She had just heard a smothered cry, followed by the dull sound of a falling body.  She ran, opened the door, and in the center of the adjoining room saw Julia stretched upon the floor.

She supposed that the child at the moment of entering the parlor had overheard some of their words, and then the thought of seeing her father’s place occupied by another, striking her thus without warning, had stirred to its very depths that passionate young soul.  Clotilde followed her into her room, where she had her carried, and expressed the wish of remaining alone with her.  While lavishing upon her cares, caresses, and kisses, it was not without fearful anguish that she awaited her daughter’s first glance.  That glance fell upon her at first with vague uncertainty, then with a sort of wild stupor.  The child pushed her away, gently; she was trying to collect her ideas, and as the expression of her thought grew firmer in her eyes, her mother could plainly read in them a violent strife of opposing feelings.

“I beg of you, I beseech you, my darling daughter,” murmured Clotilde, whose tears fell drop by drop upon the pale visage of the child.

Suddenly Julia seized her by the neck, drew her down upon herself, and kissing her passionately: 

“You have hurt me much,” she said, “oh! very much more than you can imagine; but I love you.  I love you a great deal; I shall, I must always, I assure you.”

She burst into sobs, and both wept long, closely clasped to each other.

In the meantime Monsieur de Lucan had deemed it advisable to send for the Baroness de Pers, whom he was entertaining in the parlor.  The baroness on hearing what was going on had manifested more agitation than surprise.

“Mon Dieu!” she exclaimed, “I expected it fully, my dear sir.  I did not tell you anything about it, because we hadn’t got so far yet; but I expected it fully.  That child will kill my daughter.  She will finish what her father has so well begun; for it is purely a miracle if my daughter, after all she has suffered, has been able to recover as far as you see.  I must leave them together.  I am not going in there.  Oh, mon Dieu!  I am not going in there!  In the first place, I would be afraid of annoying my daughter, and besides, that would be entirely out of my character.”

“How old is Mademoiselle Julia?” inquired Lucan, who retained under these painful circumstances his quiet courtesy.

“Why, she is almost fifteen, and I’m not sorry for it, by the way, for, entre nous, we may reasonably hope to get honestly rid of her within a year or two.  Oh! she will have no trouble in getting married, no trouble whatever, you may be sure.  In the first place she is rich, and then, after all, she is a pretty monster, there is no gainsaying that, and there is no lack of men who admire that style.”