er the elections. Until then Girardet must conduct the case under my
instructions. That is the most I can do."

"But there are questions involved which can only be settled after
inspection of the localities," said the Vicar-General.

"Girardet can go," said Savarus. "I cannot allow myself, in the face
of a town I know so well, to take any step which might compromise the
supreme interests that lie beyond my election."

The Abbe left Savarus after giving him a keen look, in which he seemed
to be laughing at the young athlete's uncompromising politics, while
admiring his firmness.

"Ah! I would have dragged my father into a lawsuit--I would have done
anything to get him here!" cried Rosalie to herself, standing in the
kiosk and looking at the lawyer in his room, the day after Albert's
interview with the Abbe, who had reported the result to her father.
"I would have committed any mortal sin, and you will not enter the
Wattevilles' drawing-room; I may not hear your fine voice! You make
conditions when your help is required by the Wattevilles and the
Rupts!--Well, God knows, I meant to be content with these small joys;
with seeing you, hearing you speak, going with you to les Rouxey, that
your presence might to me make the place sacred. That was all I asked.
But now--now I mean to be your wife.--Yes, yes; look at _her_ portrait,
at _her_ drawing-room, _her_ bedroom, at the four sides of _her_ villa,
the points of view from _her_ gardens. 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