Mauprat
disagreeable about the fellow. When he has been polished a little . . ."
"He will always be perfectly ugly."
"My dear Leblanc, he is far from ugly. You are too old; you are no longer a judge of young men."
Their conversation was interrupted by the chevalier, who came in to look for a book.
"Mademoiselle Leblanc is here, is she?" he said in a very quiet tone. "I thought you were alone with my son. Well, Edmée, have you had a talk with him? Did you tell him that you would be his sister? Are you pleased with her, Bernard?"
Such answers as I gave could compromise no one. As a rule, they consisted of four or five incoherent words crippled by shame. M. de Mauprat returned to his study, and I had sat down again, hoping that my cousin was going to send away her duenna and talk to me. But they exchanged a few words in a whisper; the duenna remained, and two mortal hours passed without my daring to stir from my chair. I believe Edmée really was asleep this time. When the bell rang for dinner her father came in again to fetch me, and before leaving her room he said to her again:
"Well, have you had a chat?"
"Yes, father, dear," she replied, with an assurance that astounded me.
My cousin's behaviour seemed to me to prove beyond doubt that she had merely been trifling with me, and that she was now afraid of my reproaches. And yet hope sprang up again when I remembered the strain in which she had spoken of me to Mademoiselle Leblanc. I even succeeded in persuading myself that she feared arousing her father's suspicions, and that she was now
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