You expect her
statue? I will make her marble herself towards you!--After all, the
woman does not love. Art, science, books, singing, music, have
absorbed half her senses and her intelligence. She is old, too; she is
past thirty; my Albert will not be happy!"
"What is the matter that you stay here, Rosalie?" asked her mother,
interrupting her reflections. "Monsieur de Soulas is in the
drawing-room, and he observed your attitude, which certainly betrays
more thoughtfulness than is due at your age."
"Then, is Monsieur de Soulas a foe to thought?" asked Rosalie.
"Then you were thinking?" said Madame de Watteville.
"Why, yes, mamma."
"Why, no! you were not thinking. You were staring at that lawyer's
window with an attention that is neither becoming, nor decent, and
which Monsieur de Soulas, of all men, ought never to have observed."
"Why?" said Rosalie.
"It is time," said the Baroness, "that you should know what our
intentions are. Amedee likes you, and you will not be unhappy as
Comtesse de Soulas."
Rosalie, as white as a lily, made no reply, so completely was she
stupefied by contending feelings. And yet in the presence of the man
she had this instant begun to hate vehemently, she forced the kind of
smile which a ballet-dancer puts on for the public. Nay, she could
even laugh; she had the strength to conceal her rage, which presently
subsided, for she was determined to make use of this fat simpleton to
further her designs.
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