By the time he had debarked Fred had made up his mind to let his mother choose a wife for him, a daughter-in-law suited to herself, who would give her the delight of grandchildren, who would bring them up well, and who would not weary of Lizerolles.  But a week later the idea of this kind of marriage had gone out of his head, and this change of feeling was partly owing to Giselle.  Giselle gave him a smile of welcome that went to his heart, for that poor heart, after all, was only waiting for a chance again to give itself away.  She was with Madame d’Argy, who had not been well enough to go to the sea-coast to meet her son, and he saw at the same moment the pale and aged face which had visited him at Tonquin in his dreams, and a fair face that he had never before thought so beautiful, more oval than he remembered it, with blue eyes soft and tender, and a mouth with a sweet infantine expression of sincerity and goodness.  His mother stretched out her trembling arms, gave a great cry, and fainted away.

“Don’t be alarmed; it is only joy,” said Giselle, in her soft voice.

And when Madame d’Argy proved her to be right by recovering very quickly, overwhelming her son with rapid questions and covering him with kisses, Giselle held out her hand to him and said: 

“I, too, am very glad you have come home.”

“Oh!” cried the sick woman in her excitement, “you must kiss your old playfellow!”

Giselle blushed a little, and Fred, more embarrassed than she, lightly touched with his lips her pretty smooth hair which shone upon her head like a helmet of gold.  Perhaps it was this new style of hairdressing which made her seem so much more beautiful than he remembered her, but it seemed to him he saw her for the first time; while, with the greatest eagerness, notwithstanding Giselle’s attempts to interrupt her, Madame d’Argy repeated to her son all she owed to that dear friend “her own daughter, the best of daughters, the most patient, the most devoted of daughters, could not have done more!  Ah! if there only could be found another one like her!”

Whereupon the object of all these praises made her escape, disclaiming everything.

Why, after this, should she have hesitated to come back to Lizerolles every day, as of late had been her custom?  Men know so little about taking care of sick people.  So she came, and was present at all the rejoicings and all the talks that followed Fred’s return.  She took her part in the discussions about Fred’s future.  “Help me, my pet,” said Madame d’Argy, “help me to find a wife for him:  all we ask is that she should be like you.”

In answer to which Fred declared, half-laughing and half-seriously, that that was his ideal.

She did not believe much of this, but, following her natural instinct, she assumed the dangerous task of consolation, until, as Madame d’Argy grew better, she discontinued her daily visits, and Fred, in his turn, took a habit of going over to Fresne without being invited, and spending there a good deal of his time.