women. "Now, my dear," the elder lady was saying, "I insist that it is high time you were married. It is ridiculous for a charming girl like you to take the stand you have. Let me see—you're thirty now—and not a single man will you encourage—scarcely tolerate—except a few grey-beards like my own good husband." Natalie feigned gay laughter, though a bitter pang shot through her heart at[145] the unconscious stab of the good Countess. [145] "Just because you fell in love," she replied, "you expect me to do the same at will. I repeat to you, as to all the rest, I would not give a kopeck for any man I have ever met. Pouf! they do not interest me. Look! my adored one, I warn you that I shall prove a most intractable guest if you attempt to inveigle me into any alliance. Ah! you look guilty already! You see, I know you of old, you dear maker of marriages!" The Countess reddened slightly at the charge, but laughed away her momentary embarrassment. It was true her interest in her young companion had led her to manage rencontres with various eligibles of the Countess's acquaintance, and she had already in mind two or three[146] new possibilities—men prominent in the younger diplomatic set. [146] "Ah, well! you pretty little incorrigible!" the Countess sighed, "some day you will thank your dear old friend for sheltering you under the wings of her experience." And thus they said good-night affectionately and parted—Madame to plan some new way of entrapping her charming friend into matrimony; Natalie to fall into a deep study as she prepared for the night. The subject of her thoughts, she felt sure, could no longer be in Langres. Fortunately, one can shift his thought-scenes around the world in a twinkling. Paul, on the other hand, had spent some seven dragging hours on his journey to Paris.[147] [147] The next morning as she glanced over the columns of the Matin, the Countess exclaimed: "Voila! Sir Paul Verdayne is at the Hôtel du Rhin. You are too young to have known him, my dear. Those sad years you were fortunately away at the Convent." And the kind-hearted old lady's eyes filled at the remembrance of Paul's sad story. "A charming man, truly. I shall send him a note at once, asking him to dine
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