Again, he feared the very obvious courtship of the Chevalier de
Saint-Eustache, and he would have welcomed a turn of events that
would effectually have frustrated it. That he did not himself
interfere so far as the Chevalier's wooing was concerned, I could
but set down to the mistrust of Saint-Eustache - amounting almost
to fear - of which he had spoken.

As for the Vicomtesse, the same causes that had won me some of the
daughter's regard gained me also no little of the mother's.

She had been attached to the Chevalier until my coming. But what
did the Chevalier know of the great world compared with what I
could tell? Her love of scandal drew her to me with inquiries upon
this person and that person, many of them but names to her.

My knowledge and wealth of detail - for all that I curbed it lest
I should seem to know too much - delighted her prurient soul. Had
she been more motherly, this same knowledge that I exhibited should
have made her ponder what manner of life I had led, and should have
inspired her to account me no fit companion for her daughter. But
a selfish woman, little inclined to be plagued by the concerns of
another - even when that other was her daughter - she left things
to the destructive course that they were shaping.

And so everything - if we except perhaps the Chevalier de
Saint-Eustache - conspired to the advancement of my suit, in a
manner that must have made Chatellerault grind his teeth in rage
if he could have witnessed it, but which made me grind mine in
despair when I pondered the situation in detail.