'Blanchette!' cried Yseulte, again, in desperation, not knowing how to stem the tide of the child's words. She, like Blanchette herself, was ignorant of all the horrible import of those words which the little thing used, half in malicious precocious knowledge, and half in absolute childish ignorance; but they terrified her and appalled her both in themselves and for their speaker, and for all which, even to her innocence, they suggested of unspeakable inconceivable shamefulness.
'Blanchette!' echoed the child, mimicking the horror and expostulation of her cry. 'Oh, how glad I am I have Schemmitz and Brawn to teach me instead of going to a convent to be made a goose of like you. Schemmitz and Brawn are old owls, but I keep my eyes and my ears open at Trouville, at Biarritz, in Paris, here, anywhere, everywhere. Now, in your nunnery you see no more, you hear no more, than if you were a statue in a chapel. That is why you are so stupid. _Tiens!_ Why did papa call Count Othmar your friend? Is he your friend? You are as still as a mouse about everything.'
Her quick glance saw the colour mount into her cousin's face, and the cruel child laughed triumphantly. 'Oh, how you blush, oh-oh! Nobody blushes now-a-days. One must be old-fashioned like you to be so silly. _I_ shall never blush. _Tiens_, Yseulte, tell me all about it and I will not tell Toinon.'
'There is nothing to tell,' said Yseulte, almost losing her patience.
'Papa never says anything without meaning something by it,' said Blanchette, sagaciously. 'And if there be nothing, why should you blush? I know all about Count Othmar; he is rich--oh, so rich! Nobody was ever so rich outside the _Juiverie_; I heard them say so this autumn at Aix. But all he cares about is Princess Napraxine. Have you ever seen Princess Napraxine? She drives in the Bois with three horses in the Russian way; the one in the middle is a little in front of the others, and they have only little bits of silver for harness, and they fly--ouf! I mean to marry a Russian.'
'Is she so very beautiful?' said Yseulte, in a low tone, ashamed of questioning the child, and yet impelled by an irresistible desire to hear more of this wondrous sovereign.
'_Pas tant que ça!_' said Blanchette, critically. 'But she is much more than only handsome. She makes every one that goes near her mad about her. She is pale, and has great eyes; but there is no one like her, they say. What do you think they call her? They call her Flocon de Neige. She cares for nobody, you know; that is what they mean. She is not at all what I admire; what I admire is the Duchesse d'Ambrée. _Elle sait se faire une tête!_'--continued Blanchette, growing breathless, and powerless to express her immense admiration.