"Good God! what do you mean?" said Michel, sighing dolefully.
"You know what you are to her, Monsieur Michel; you can't have forgotten the care she took of your youth, and the solicitude she continues to bestow upon you, though you are now of an age when lads begin to slip through their mother's fingers. You can, therefore, imagine what her tortures are in knowing that you are exposed every day to the terrible dangers that surround you. I do not conceal from you that I considered it my duty to inform her of what I suppose to be your intentions, and I have fulfilled that duty."
"Oh, what have you said to her, Maître Loriot?"
"I told her, in plain language, that I believed you to be desperately in love with Mademoiselle Bertha de Souday--"
"Goodness!" exclaimed Michel; "he, too!"
"And," continued the notary, without noticing the interruption, "that, to all appearance, you intend to marry her."
"What did my mother say?" asked Michel, with visible anxiety.
"Just what all mothers say when they hear of a marriage they disapprove. But come, let me question you myself, my young friend; my position as notary of both families ought to give me some influence with you. Have you seriously reflected on what you are about to do?"
"Do you share my mother's prejudices?" demanded Michel. "Do you know anything against the reputation of the Demoiselles de Souday?"
"Nothing whatever, my young friend," replied Maître Loriot, while Michel gazed anxiously at the windows of the house into which Mary had entered,--"nothing whatever! On the contrary, I consider those young ladies, whom I have known from childhood, as among the purest and most virtuous in the land, in spite of the malicious nickname a few evil tongues have applied to them."