“Why! what is the matter, my dear Joan?” she said; “you look like a funeral.”

“Alas!” sighed Mlle. Moiseney, “I have sad news to communicate.”

“What! have they written to you from Cormeilles that your parrot is dead?”

“Ah, my dear child, be reasonable, be strong; summon up all your courage.”

“For the love of God, what is the matter?”

“Ah! would that I could spare you this trouble!  Your father has just received a letter from Mme. de Lorcy.”

Antoinette grew more attentive, her breath came quickly.  “And what was there in this letter that is so terrible, so heart-rending?” she asked, forcing a smile.

“Fortunately, I am here,” replied Mlle. Moiseney.  “You know that your joys and your sorrows are mine.  All the consolation that I can lavish upon you, the tenderest sympathy—­”

“My dear Joan, in the name of Heaven, explain first, and then console!”

“You told me nothing, my child—­I have a right to complain; but I have divined all.  I can read your heart.  I am sure that you love him.”

“Of whom do you speak?” replied Antoinette, whose colour rose in her cheeks.

“Of a most charming man, who, either through inconceivable stupidity, or through most criminal calculation, neglected to tell us that he was married.”

And with these words, Mlle. Moiseney extended both arms, that she might receive into them Mlle. Moriaz, whom she believed to be already swooning.

Mlle. Moriaz did not swoon.  She flushed crimson, then grew very pale; but she remained standing, her head proudly erect, and she said, in a tone of well-feigned indifference:  “Oh!  M. Larinski is married?  My very sincere compliments to the Countess Larinski.”

After which she busied herself arranging in a vase the heather and ferns she had brought back with her.  Mlle. Moiseney stood lost in astonishment at her calm; she gazed in a stupor at her, and suddenly exclaimed:  “Thank God! you do not love him!  Your father has mistaken, he often mistakes; he sometimes gets the strangest ideas into his mind; he was persuaded that this would be a death-blow to you; he does not know you at all.  Ah! unquestionably, M. Larinski is far from being disagreeable; I do not dispute his having some merit; but I always thought that there was something suspicious about him; his manners were a little equivocal; I suspected him of hiding something from us.  As it appears, he has made a mesalliance that he did not care to acknowledge.  It is deplorable that a man of such excellent address should have low tastes and doubtful morality.  His duty was to tell us all; he was neither loyal nor delicate.”

“You dream, my dear,” replied Antoinette.  “What law, human or divine, obliged M. Larinski to tell us everything?  Did you expect him to render an account of his deeds and misdeeds to us as to a tribunal of penance?”