“Promise,” said Rose, doggedly.

Josephine looked at her calmly through her tears.

“Promise, dear,” repeated Rose, and this time with an intonation so fine that it attracted Josephine’s notice, but not the doctor’s.  It was followed by a glance equally subtle.

“I promise,” said Josephine, with her eye fixed inquiringly on her sister.

For once she could not make the telegraph out:  but she could see it was playing, and that was enough.  She did what Rose bid her; she promised not to go to Frejus without leave.

Finding her so submissive all of a sudden, he went on to suggest that she must not go kissing every child she saw.  “Edouard tells me he saw you kissing a beggar’s brat.  The young rogue was going to quiz you about it at the dinner-table; luckily, he told me his intention, and I would not let him.  I said the baroness would be annoyed with you for descending from your dignity—­and exposing a noble family to fleas—­hush! here he is.”

“Tiresome!” muttered Rose, “just when”—­

Edouard came forward with a half-vexed face.

However, he turned it off into play.  “What have you been saying to her, monsieur, to interest her so?  Give me a leaf out of your book.  I need it.”

The doctor was taken aback for a moment, but at last he said slyly, “I have been proposing to her to name the day.  She says she must consult you before she decides that.”

“Oh, you wicked doctor!—­and consult him of all people!”

“So be off, both of you, and don’t reappear before me till it is settled.”

Edouard’s eyes sparkled.  Rose went out with a face as red as fire.

It was a balmy evening.  Edouard was to leave them for a week the next day.  They were alone:  Rose was determined he should go away quite happy.  Everything was in Edouard’s favor:  he pleaded his cause warmly:  she listened tenderly:  this happy evening her piquancy and archness seemed to dissolve into tenderness as she and Edouard walked hand in hand under the moon:  a tenderness all the more heavenly to her devoted lover, that she was not one of those angels who cloy a man by invariable sweetness.

For a little while she forgot everything but her companion.  In that soft hour he won her to name the day, after her fashion.

“Josephine goes to Paris with the doctor in about three weeks,” murmured she.

“And you will stay behind, all alone?”

“Alone? that shall depend on you, monsieur.”

On this Edouard caught her for the first time in his arms.

She made a faint resistance.

“Seal me that promise, sweet one!”

“No! no!—­there!”

He pressed a delicious first kiss upon two velvet lips that in their innocence scarcely shunned the sweet attack.

For all that, the bond was no sooner sealed after this fashion, than the lady’s cheek began to burn.