When Bertha appealed to him by her look, he could no longer remain silent.
"You are right, Bertha; Madeleine is to me all that she ever was. I am as proud of her as I have ever been; more proud I could not be! _To renounce her would be as impossible as it has ever been._"
Madeleine, who had appeared so firm and composed up to that moment, trembled violently; her heart seemed to cease its pulsations; a cold tremor ran through her veins; a mist floated before her eyes; exquisite happiness became exquisite pain! She turned, as though about to leave the room, but her feet faltered. In a second, M. de Bois was at her side, and gave her his arm; she took it almost unconsciously. The voice of her aunt restored her as suddenly as a dash of ice-water could have done.
"Your father's commands and mine, then, Maurice, are to have no weight. We order you to renounce all intercourse with this person, whom we no longer acknowledge as a relative, and you unhesitatingly declare to her, in our very presence, that you disregard our wishes. This, it seems, is the first effect of Mademoiselle de Gramont's renewed influence, which we have before now found so pernicious."
"Do not fear, madame," answered Madeleine; "I will not permit"--
"Make no rash promise, Madeleine,"--interrupted Maurice. "My father's wishes and my grandmother's must ever have weight with me; but when I honestly differ from them in opinion, I trust there is no disrespect in my saying so. Blindly to obey their commands would be to abnegate free agency and self-responsibility."
"I have not forgotten," said the countess, freezingly, "that the first disrespect towards me of which you were guilty was originated by Mademoiselle de Gramont. I perceive that she is again about to create a family feud, and separate father and son, grandmother and grandchild. All her noble sentiments and heroic acting have ever this end in view. During the period that she concealed herself from us she has evidently never lost sight of this great aim of her existence, and has closely calculated events, and bided her time that she might manoeuvre with additional power and certainty. She has not disgraced us enough; she is planning the total downfall of our noble house, no matter whom it buries in the ruins. It is not sufficient that we have to blush for the _dressmaker_, who would exchange the device graven upon her ancestral arms for that of a scissors and thimble; but she is laboring to bring her disgrace nearer and fasten it more permanently upon us."