Moriaz did not swoon.

She flushed crimson, then grew very pale; but she remained standing, her head proudly erect, and she said, in a tone of well-feigned indifference: "Oh! M.Larinski is married?
My very sincere compliments to the Countess Larinski." After which she busied herself arranging in a vase the heather and ferns she had brought back with her.Mlle.Moiseney stood lost in astonishment at her calm; she gazed in a stupor at her, and suddenly exclaimed: "Thank God! you do not love him! Your father has mistaken, he often mistakes; he sometimes gets the strangest ideas into his mind; he was persuaded that this would be a death-blow to you; he does not know you at all.

Ah! unquestionably, M.Larinski is far from being disagreeable; I do not dispute his having some merit; but I always thought that there was something suspicious about him; his manners were a little equivocal; I suspected him of hiding something from us.

As it appears, he has made a _mesalliance_ that he did not care to acknowledge.

It is deplorable that a man of such excellent address should have low tastes and doubtful morality.