Yvette gave her a piercing look, as if to read the depths of her soul and to seize all the sensations which her words might awake.
"It is this. Something strange has just happened."
"What can it be?"
"Monsieur de Servigny has told me that he loves me."
The Marquise, disturbed, waited a moment, and, as Yvette said nothing more, she asked:
"How did he tell you that? Explain yourself!"
Then the young girl, sitting at her mother's feet, in a coaxing attitude common with her, and clasping her hands, added:
"He asked me to marry him."
Madame Obardi made a sudden gesture of stupefaction and cried:
"Servigny! Why! you are crazy!"