“Ah, colonel, my dear baron! if nothing is wanting but my consent you have it with no further delay than the law requires,” cried Rogron, delighted to be rid of his formidable rival.
Sylvie spent the morning in her own room considering how the new household could be arranged. She determined to build a second storey for her brother and to furnish the rest for herself and her husband; but she also resolved, in the true old-maidish spirit, to subject the colonel to certain proofs by which to judge of his heart and his morals before she finally committed herself. She was still suspicious, and wanted to make sure that Pierrette had no private intercourse with the colonel.
Pierrette came down before the dinner-hour to lay the table. Sylvie had been forced to cook the dinner, and had sworn at that “cursed Pierrette” for a spot she had made on her gown,--wasn’t it plain that if Pierrette had done her own work Sylvie wouldn’t have got that grease-spot on her silk dress?
“Oh, here you are, _peakling_? You are like the dog of the marshal who woke up as soon as the saucepans rattled. Ha! you want us to think you are ill, you little liar!”
That idea: “You did not tell the truth about what happened in the square this morning, therefore you lie in everything,” was a hammer with which Sylvie battered the head and also the heart of the poor girl incessantly.
To Pierrette’s great astonishment Sylvie sent her to dress in her best clothes after dinner. The liveliest imagination is never up to the level of the activity which suspicion excites in the mind of an old maid. In this particular case, this particular old maid carried the day against politicians, lawyers, notaries, and all other self-interests. Sylvie determined to consult Vinet, after examining herself into all the suspicious circumstances. She kept Pierrette close to her, so as to find out from the girl’s face whether the colonel had told her the truth.
On this particular evening the Chargeboeuf ladies were the first to arrive. Bathilde, by Vinet’s advice, had become more elaborate in her dress. She now wore a charming gown of blue velveteen, with the same transparent fichu, garnet pendants in her ears, her hair in ringlets, the wily _jeannette_ round her throat, black satin slippers, gray silk stockings, and _gants de Suede_; add to these things the manners of a queen and the coquetry of a young girl determined to capture Rogron. Her mother, calm and dignified, retained, as did her daughter, a certain aristocratic insolence, with which the two women hedged themselves and preserved the spirit of their caste. Bathilde was a woman of intelligence, a fact which Vinet alone had discovered during the two months’ stay the ladies had made at his house. When he had fully fathomed the mind of the girl, wounded and disappointed as it was by the fruitlessness of her beauty and her youth, and enlightened by the contempt she felt for the men of a period in which money was the only idol, Vinet, himself surprised, exclaimed,--