laugh. "What think you I care for that? Indeed, Blandine, you astonish me by thus concerning yourself with vulgar rumours. It is really showing too much condescension to the envious wretches."
"All the same, Monsieur Henry," she continued with a little less assurance, "I confess to you that I think the astonishment of the villagers well enough founded. Frankly, notwithstanding his qualities, this little Guidon is not the companion for you. Admit it! You now see no one but him, or else you run about here and there with the Klaarvatsch vagabonds at the other end of the island. Of your old friends not one is now invited to Escal-Vigor. All that is not natural and leads to plenty of gossip. Others, besides coarse, ill-disposed people, have reason to be astonished at it."
"Blandine!" interrupted the Dykgrave in an icy and haughty tone, "since when have you taken it into your head to control my actions and interfere with the company I keep?"
"Oh, do not be angry, Monsieur Henry," she said, quite crushed by his harsh tone and forbidding look, "I know I am only your humble servant but I always love you,"
