Madame du Gua made a sign as if to say that she would soon clear up the mystery.
However, the departure of Corentin seemed to lessen the young man’s distrust, and he began to cast on Mademoiselle de Verneuil certain looks which betrayed an immoderate admiration for women, rather than the respectful warmth of a dawning passion. The young girl grew more and more reserved, and gave all her attentions to Madame du Gua. The youth, angry with himself, tried, in his vexation, to turn the tables and seem indifferent. Mademoiselle de Verneuil appeared not to notice this manoeuvre; she continued to be simple without shyness and reserved without prudery.
This chance meeting of personages who, apparently, were not destined to become intimate, awakened no agreeable sympathy on either side. There was even a sort of vulgar embarrassment, an awkwardness which destroyed all the pleasure which Mademoiselle de Verneuil and the young sailor had begun by expecting. But women have such wonderful conventional tact, they are so intimately allied with each other, or they have such keen desires for emotion, that they always know how to break the ice on such occasions. Suddenly, as if the two beauties had the same thought, they began to tease their solitary knight in a playful way, and were soon vying with each other in the jesting attention which they paid to him; this unanimity of action left them free. At the end of half an hour, the two women, already secret enemies, were apparently the best of friends. The young man then discovered that he felt as angry with Mademoiselle de Verneuil for her friendliness and freedom as he had been with her reserve. In fact, he was so annoyed by it that he regretted, with a sort of dumb anger, having allowed her to breakfast with them.
“Madame,” said Mademoiselle de Verneuil, “is your son always as gloomy as he is at this moment?”
“Mademoiselle,” he replied, “I ask myself what is the good of a fleeting happiness. The secret of my gloom is the evanescence of my pleasure.”
“That is a madrigal,” she said, laughing, “which rings of the Court rather than the Polytechnique.”
“My son only expressed a very natural thought, mademoiselle,” said Madame du Gua, who had her own reasons for placating the stranger.
