morning, when she had been snubbed rather rudely by her niece.
Marie in answer shook her head and shrugged her shoulders. 'If you
cannot put on a better look before M. Urmand comes, I think he will
hardly hold to his bargain,' said Madame Voss, who was angry.

'Who wants him to hold to his bargain?' said Marie sharply. Then
feeling ill-inclined to discuss the matter with her aunt, she left
the room. Madame Voss, who had been assured by her husband that
Marie had no real objection to Adrian Urmand, did not understand it
all.

'I am sure Marie is unhappy,' she said to her husband when he came
in at noon that day.

'Yes,' said he. 'It seems strange, but it is so, I fancy, with the
best of our young women. Her feeling of modesty--of bashfulness if
you will--is outraged by being told that she is to admit this man as
her lover. She won't make the worse wife on that account, when he
gets her home.'

Madame Voss was not quite sure that her husband was right. She had
not before observed young women to be made savage in their daily
work by the outrage to their modesty of an acknowledged lover. But,
as usual, she submitted to her husband. Had she not done so, there
would have come that glance from the corner of his eye, and that
curl in his lip, and that gentle breath from his nostril, which had
become to her the expression of imperious marital authority.
Nothing could be kinder, more truly affectionate, than was the heart
of her husband towards her niece. Therefore Madame Voss yielded,
and comforted herself by an assurance that as the best was being