‘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 done for Marie, she need not subject herself to her husband’s displeasure by contradiction or interference.

Michel Voss himself said little or nothing to his niece at this time.  She had yielded to him, making him a promise that she would endeavour to accede to his wishes, and he felt that he was bound in honour not to trouble her farther, unless she should show herself to be disobedient when the moment of trial came.  He was not himself at ease, he was not comfortable at heart, because he knew that Marie was avoiding him.  Though she would still stand behind his chair at supper,—­when for a moment she would be still,—­she did not put her hands upon his head, nor did she speak to him more than the nature of her service required.  Twice he tried to induce her to sit with them at table, as though to show that her position was altered now that she was about to become a bride; but he was altogether powerless to effect any such change as this.  No words that could have been spoken would have induced Marie to seat herself at the table, so well did she understand all that such a change in her habits would have seemed to imply.  There was now hardly one person in the supper-room of the hotel who did not instinctively understand the reason which made Michel Voss anxious that his niece should sit down, and that other reason which made her sternly refuse to comply with his request.  So, day followed day, and there was but little said between the uncle and the niece, though heretofore—­up to a time still within a fortnight of the present day—­the whole business of the house had been managed by little whispered conferences between them.  ‘I think we’ll do so and so, uncle;’ or, ’Just you manage it yourself, Marie.’  Such and such-like words had passed every morning and evening, with an understanding between them full and complete.  Now each was afraid of the other, and everything was astray.