Then I was thunderstruck.  In a second a thousand thoughts and suppositions flashed through my mind.  Did they expect me to pick out one of the young Chantal ladies?  Was that a trick to make me say which one I prefer?  Was it a gentle, light, direct hint of the parents toward a possible marriage?  The idea of marriage roams continually in houses with grown-up girls, and takes every shape and disguise, and employs every subterfuge.  A dread of compromising myself took hold of me as well as an extreme timidity before the obstinately correct and reserved attitude of the Misses Louise and Pauline.  To choose one of them in preference to the other seemed to me as difficult as choosing between two drops of water; and then the fear of launching myself into an affair which might, in spite of me, lead me gently into matrimonial ties, by means as wary and imperceptible and as calm as this insignificant royalty—­the fear of all this haunted me.

Suddenly I had an inspiration, and I held out to Mademoiselle Pearl the symbolical emblem.  At first every one was surprised, then they doubtless appreciated my delicacy and discretion, for they applauded furiously.  Everybody was crying:  “Long live the queen!  Long live the queen!”

As for herself, poor old maid, she was so amazed that she completely lost control of herself; she was trembling and stammering:  “No—­no—­oh! no—­not me—­please—­not me—­I beg of you——­”

Then for the first time in my life I looked at Mademoiselle Pearl and wondered what she was.

I was accustomed to seeing her in this house, just as one sees old upholstered armchairs on which one has been sitting since childhood without ever noticing them.  One day, with no reason at all, because a ray of sunshine happens to strike the seat, you suddenly think:  “Why, that chair is very curious”; and then you discover that the wood has been worked by a real artist and that the material is remarkable.  I had never taken any notice of Mademoiselle Pearl.

She was a part of the Chantal family, that was all.  But how?  By what right?  She was a tall, thin person who tried to remain in the background, but who was by no means insignificant.  She was treated in a friendly manner, better than a housekeeper, not so well as a relative.  I suddenly observed several shades of distinction which I had never noticed before.  Madame Chantal said:  “Pearl.”  The young ladies:  “Mademoiselle Pearl,” and Chantal only addressed her as “Mademoiselle,” with an air of greater respect, perhaps.

I began to observe her.  How old could she be?  Forty?  Yes, forty.  She was not old, she made herself old.  I was suddenly struck by this fact.  She fixed her hair and dressed in a ridiculous manner, and, notwithstanding all that, she was not in the least ridiculous, she had such simple, natural gracefulness, veiled and hidden.  Truly, what a strange creature!  How was it I had never observed her before?  She dressed her hair in a grotesque manner with little old maid curls, most absurd; but beneath this one could see a large, calm brow, cut by two deep lines, two wrinkles of long sadness, then two blue eyes, large and tender, so timid, so bashful, so humble, two beautiful eyes which had kept the expression of naive wonder of a young girl, of youthful sensations, and also of sorrow, which had softened without spoiling them.