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,--
"If I could only have married you, Bathilde, I should to-day be Keeper
of the Seals. I should call myself Vinet de Chargeboeuf, and take my
seat as deputy of the Right.
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