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to hide her feelings. She did not answer.
"You will say nothing to him about it, Ma'ame Grandet, till I return,"
said the old man. "I have to go and straighten the line of my hedge
along the high-road. I shall be back at noon, in time for the second
breakfast, and then I will talk with my nephew about his affairs. As
for you, Mademoiselle Eugenie, if it is for that dandy you are crying,
that's enough, child. He's going off like a shot to the Indies. You
will never see him again."
The father took his gloves from the brim of his hat, put them on with
his usual composure, pushed them in place by shoving the fingers of
both hands together, and went out.
"Mamma, I am suffocating!" cried Eugenie when she was alone with her
mother; "I have never suffered like this."
Madame Grandet, seeing that she turned pale, opened the window and let
her breathe fresh air.
"I feel better!" said Eugenie after a moment.
This nervous excitement in a nature hitherto, to all appearance, calm
and cold, reacted on Madame Grandet; she looked at her daughter with
the sympathetic intuition with which mothers are gifted for the
objects of their tenderness, and guessed all. In truth the life of the
Hungarian sisters, bound together by a freak of nature, could scarcely
have been more intimate than that of Eugenie and her mother,--always
together in the embrasure of that window, and sleeping together in the
same atmosphere.
"My poor child!" said Madame Grandet, taking Eugenie's head and laying
it upon her bosom.
At these words the young girl raised her head, questioned her mother
by a look, and seemed to search out her inmost thought.
"Why send him to the Indies?" she said. "If he is unhappy, ought he
not to stay with us? Is he not our nearest relation?"
"Yes, my child, it seems natural; but your father has his reasons: we
must respect them."
The mother and daughter sat down in silence, the former upon her
raised seat, the latter in her little armchair, and both took up their
work. Swelling with gratitude for the full heart-understanding her
mother had given her, Eugenie kissed the dear hand, saying,--
"How good you are, my kind mamma!"
The words sent a glow of light into the motherly face, worn and
blighted as it was by many sorrows.
"You like him?" asked Eugenie.
Madame Grandet only smiled in reply. Then, after a moment's silence,
she said in a low voice: "Do you love him already? That is wrong."
"Wrong?" said Eugenie. "Why is it wrong? You are pleased with him,
Nanon is pleased with him; why should he not please me? Come, mamma,
let us set the table for his breakfast."
She threw down her work, and her mother did the same, saying, "Foolish
child!" But she sanctioned the child's folly by sharing it. Eugenie
called Nanon.
"What do you want now, mademoiselle?"
"Nanon, can we have cream by midday?"
"Ah! midday, to be sure you can," answered the old servant.
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