Yvette had not taken her eyes off her mother's face, watching her thoughts and her surprise. She asked with a serious voice:
"Why am I crazy? Why should not Monsieur de Servigny marry me?"
The Marquise, embarrassed, stammered:
"You are mistaken, it is not possible. You either did not hear or did not understand. Monsieur de Servigny is too rich for you, and too much of a Parisian to marry." Yvette rose softly. She added: "But if he loves me as he says he does, mamma?"
Her mother replied, with some impatience: "I thought you big enough and wise enough not to have such ideas. Servigny is a man-about-town and an egotist. He will never marry anyone but a woman of his set and his fortune. If he asked you in marriage, it is only that he wants—"
The Marquise, incapable of expressing her meaning, was silent for a moment, then continued: "Come now, leave me alone and go to bed."
And the young girl, as if she had learned what she sought to find out, answered in a docile voice: "Yes, mamma!"
She kissed her mother on the forehead and withdrew with a calm step. As she reached the door, the Marquise called out: "And your sunstroke?" she said.
"I did not have one at all. It was that which caused everything."
The Marquise added: "We will not speak of it again. Only don't stay alone with him for some time from now, and be very sure that he will never marry you, do you understand, and that he merely means to—compromise you."