“My dear friend,” said the baroness, “I am delighted, really delighted, but you are choking me—­yes, yes, it is all for the best, my dear fellow—­but you are literally choking me, I tell you!  Reserve yourself, my friend, reserve yourself!—­The dear child! that’s quite nice of her, quite nice!  In point of fact, she has a heart of gold!  And then she has good taste, too, for you are very handsome yourself, very handsome, mon cher, very handsome!  To be perfectly candid, I always had an idea that, at the moment of cutting off her hair, she would think the matter over.  And she has such beautiful hair, the poor child!”

And the baroness melted into tears; then addressing the count in the midst of her sobs: 

“You’ll not be very unhappy either, by the way; she is a goddess!”

Monsieur de Lucan, though deeply moved by this family tableau, and above all, by Clotilde’s joy, took more coolly that unexpected event.  Besides that he did not generally show himself very demonstrative in public, he was sad and anxious at heart.  The future prospects of this marriage seemed extremely uncertain to him, and in his profound friendship for the count he felt alarmed.  He had not ventured, through a sentiment of delicate reserve toward Julia, upon telling him all he thought of her character and disposition.  He strove to banish from his mind as partial and unjust the opinion he had formed of her; but still he could not help remembering the terrible child he had known once, at times wild as a hurricane, at others pensive and wrapped in gloomy reserve; he tried to imagine her such as she had been described to him since; tall, handsome, ascetic; then he fancied her suddenly casting her vail to the winds, like one of the fantastic nuns in “Robert le Diable,” and returning swift-footed into the world; of all these various impressions he composed, in spite of himself, a figure of Chimera and Sphinx, which he found very difficult to connect with the idea of domestic happiness.

They discussed in the family circle, during the whole evening, the complications which might arise from that marriage project, and the means of avoiding them.  Monsieur de Lucan entered into all these details with the utmost good grace, and declared that he would lend himself heartily, for his own part, to all the arrangements which his daughter-in-law might wish.  That precaution was not destined to be useless.

Early the next morning, Clotilde returned to the convent.  Julia, after listening with slightly ironical nonchalance to the account which her mother gave her of the transports and the joy of her intended, assumed a more serious air.

“And your husband,” she said, “what does he think of it?”

“He is delighted, as we all are.”

“I am going to ask you a single question:  does he expect to be present at our wedding?”

“That will be just as you like.”

“Listen, good little mother, and don’t grieve in advance.  I know very well that sooner or later, this marriage must be the means of bringing us all together; but let me have a little time to become accustomed to the idea.  Grant me a few months so that the old Julia may be forgotten, and I may forget her myself—­you will; say, won’t you?”