ess. Could
she be, by chance, the natural daughter of a prince? Had her poor
mother, betrayed and deserted, made Marquise by some king, perhaps
King Victor Emmanuel, been obliged to take flight before the anger
of the family? Was she not rather a child abandoned by its
relations, who were noble and illustrious, the fruit of a
clandestine love, taken in by the Marquise, who had adopted and
brought her up?

Still other suppositions passed through her mind. She accepted or
rejected them according to the dictates of her fancy. She was moved
to pity over her own case, happy at the bottom of her heart, and sad
also, taking a sort of satisfaction in becoming a sort of a heroine
of a book who must: assume a noble attitude, worthy of herself.

She laid out the part she must play, according to events at which
she guessed. She vaguely outlined this role, like one of Scribe's or
of George Sand's. It should be endued with devotion, self-abnegation,
greatness of soul, tenderness; and fine words. Her pliant nature
almost rejoiced in this new attitude. She pondered almost till evening
what she should do, wondering how she should manage to wrest the truth
from the Marquise.

And when night came, favorable to tragic situations, she had thought
out a simple and subtile trick to obtain what she wanted: it was,
brusquely, to say that Servigny had asked for her hand in marriage.

At this news, Madame Obardi, taken by surprise, would certainly let
a word escape her lips, a cry which would throw light into the mind
of her daughter. And Yvette had accomplished her plan.

She expected an explosion of astonishment, an expansion of love, a
confidence full of gestures and tears. But, instead of this, her
mother, without appearing stupefied or grieved, had only seemed
bored; and from the constrained, discontented, and worried tone in
which she had replied, the young girl, in whom there suddenly awaked
all the astuteness, keenness, and sharpness of a woman,
understanding that she must not insist, that the mystery was of
another nature, that it would be painful to her to learn it, and
that she must puzzle it out all alone, had gone back to her room,
her heart oppressed, her soul in distress, possessed now with the
apprehensions of a real misfortune, without knowing exactly either
whence or why this emotion came to her. So she wept, leaning at the
window.

She wept long, not dreaming of anything now, not seeking to discover
anything more, and