Page:Novels of Honoré de Balzac Volume 23.djvu/204

 you?’—‘I will do all that my husband wishes,’ she answered. ‘If he asks me to do some wrong thing and I am weak enough to obey him, he will be charged with those sins before God; but for his sake I should of course draw upon all my strength to resist him.’”

Entering Nemours, at five in the morning, Ursule awoke, all abashed at her untidiness and at meeting Savinien’s look of admiration. In the hour that the diligence takes in coming from Bouron, where it stops a few minutes, the young man had fallen in love with Ursule. He had studied the sincerity of this soul, the beauty of body, the whiteness of the complexion, the delicacy of feature, the charm of the voice which had uttered the short and expressive sentence in which the poor child told all while wishing to tell nothing. In short, I do not know what presentiment told him that Ursule was the wife described to him by the doctor, whilst framing her in gold with these magic words, “Seven to eight hundred thousand francs!”

“In three or four years she will be twenty and I shall be twenty-seven; the good old man spoke of tests, of work, and good conduct! However cunning he may appear, he will end by telling me his secret.”

The three neighbors separated opposite their houses, and Savinien put coquetry into his adieus by casting a look full of entreaty at Ursule. Madame de Portenduère let her son sleep until midday. In spite of the fatigue of the journey the