in his ear, "Will you scold me if I tell you something?" Once more she
heard her father say, after a few questions in reply to which she
spoke for the first time of her love, "Well, well, my child, we will
think of it. If he studies well, if he fits himself to succeed me, if
he continues to please you, I will be on your side."

After that she had listened no longer; she had kissed her father, and,
knocking over his papers as she ran from the room, she flew to the
great linden-tree where, daily, before her formidable mother rose, she
met that charming cousin, Georges de Chaverny.

Faithfully the youth promised to study law and customs. He laid aside
the splendid trappings of the nobility of the sword to wear the
sterner costume of the magistracy.

"I like you better in black," she said.

It was a falsehood, but by that falsehood she comforted her lover for
having thrown his dagger to the winds. The memory of the little
schemes employed to deceive her mother, whose severity seemed great,
brought back to her the soulful joys of that innocent and mutual and
sanctioned love; sometimes a rendezvous beneath the linden, where
speech could be freer than before witnesses; sometimes a furtive
clasp, or a stolen kiss,--in short, all the naive instalments of a
passion that did not pass the bounds of modesty. Reliving in her
vision those delightful days when she seemed to have too much
happiness, she fancied that she kissed, in the void, that fine young
face with the glowing eyes, that rosy mouth that spoke so well of
love. Yes, she had loved Chaverny, poor apparently; but what treasures
had she not discovered in that soul as tender as it was strong!