"If Madame de Valricour doubts my word," answered Isidore haughtily, "she will have to satisfy herself elsewhere. I am not in the habit of substantiating my assertions."
"I say again it is false," reiterated the incensed baroness, forgetting her usual caution. "I wrote to your father about you and Clotilde. Do you dare to tell me that he has bidden you to marry some one else? If you are not a base and unworthy trickster, then you must be the veriest idiot alive."
A single lens may not, perhaps, suffice to make an object visible, but place another in juxtaposition with it and suddenly all becomes clear and distinct. Isidore recalled the piteous words uttered by Marguerite as she dropped the letter, and the truth flashed across his mind at once.
Madame de Valricour had thrown herself into a chair as she concluded her tirade, for the collected way in which her nephew had at first listened to her, and his high and mighty air, seemed to belie any charge of duplicity at all events. But when she noticed the alarmed expression of his face, and the no less unmistakable change in his manner, she was on her feet again in a moment and was about to renew the attack, but he interrupted her.
"Pardon me, my aunt," said he, "it is worse than useless for us two to discuss this business. I am afraid I have made a mistake indeed, and one that is like enough to cause no little bitterness and trouble. Yet I do not regret it for one moment," he added, as he thought of the few loving words with which Marguerite had confessed her long-cherished affection for him. "Whatever you may think, my aunt, I have acted honestly and in good faith, and it will rest with my father to decide how all this is to end. I shall appeal to him at once. Nay, I beseech you, my good aunt," he continued, seeing the baroness about to break forth again, "let us not make things worse by useless altercation. With your permission I will relieve you of my presence, and will desire Jasmin to order our horses that I may return at once to Beaujardin."
Without giving Madame de Valricour time for any further comment, Isidore then bowed to her and withdrew.
