Smiling, frowning, evermore Thou art perfect in love-lore.
—Tennyson.
"My cabbage," said Maman Legros in that decisive tone, which she only assumed on great occasions, and which then no one dreamed of contradicting, "what thou dost ask is entirely out of the question. It is not seemly for a maiden to be left alone in company with her lord. Why! every one down the street would know of it—thy father's 'prentices would make mock of thee—and thy reputation would be as surely gone as is thistle-down after a gale."
 
"But, Maman," hazarded Rose Marie, bold for the first time in her life, in the face of maman's stern refusal, "my lord is not my future husband. He is my husband, and surely I have the right to talk to him alone sometimes."
 
"Rose Marie, thou talkest like a goose, that cackles without understanding," replied maman sternly, "though my lord is thy husband by law and by the will of the Church, he will not be thy true lord until the day after to-morrow, when thou wilt ratify thy vows to love, honour and humbly obey him, which vows I, thy mother, took in thy name eighteen years ago. Before thou hast spoken them with thine own lips, after High Mass on Wednesday, thou dost an unseemly and unmaiden-like act in wishing to be alone in his company. Truly thy guardian angel must be veiling his face with the shame of thee at the present moment."
 
[155] But Rose Marie refused to look upon the troubles of her guardian angel with proper compunction. She still felt rebellious and argumentative; but she changed her tactics. The sly young damsel realised that she had taken maman the wrong way and that she would gain nothing by controversy. She, therefore, brought forth her other weapons of attack, certain methods of pressure on the parental will which hitherto she had never known to fail.
 
She commenced proceedings by allowing her blue eyes to be veiled in tears, then seeing that maman turned her face away so as not to be forced to look on those pathetic dewdrops the rogue went close up to her mother and kneeling beside her put two loving arms round the old woman's shoulders.
 
"Maman!" she whispered with quivering lips.
 
"'Tis no use," retorted maman obdurately.
 
"Only one very tiny, short quarter of an hour, Maman chérie—after dinner—when papa goes downstairs to set the afternoon work to the 'prentices—you could be busy in the kitchen—accidentally—just for one quarter of an hour—Maman chérie!"
 
The pleading voice was hard to resist. Maman tried to steel her heart and obstinately turned away from those liquid eyes, drowned in tears.
 
"But in the name of the Holy Virgin, child," she said gruffly, "what is there that thou wouldst say to my lord, that thou canst not do in thy mother's presence?"
 
"'Tis not what I would say, Maman—" rejoined Rose Marie in a soft murmur quite close to maman's ear.
 
"Then what?"
 
"I want to hear him speak to me, Maman chérie—oh, I am sure that he will say naught that is unseemly—he is too proud and too rigid for that—but, when you and[156] papa are in the room he never, never speaks to me at all—I have oft wondered if he thought me a goose. When he comes, he greets me of a truth as if I were a queen, he kisses my hand—and bows in the most correct manner—then, when I sing to him and play on the harpsichord, he praises my voice, and coldly thanks me for the entertainment&mdas............