“No, I cannot blame them, for they do not know the truth of it: how I begged to be taken with Michelle when my father’s letter came, and how I knew that I would rather by far suffer with her and with my father than to live at ease as the wife of my cousin. No, they could not know that, nor that I would never conform.”
“Not to save your father?”
“From what?”
“From the life of an engagé.”
“He is that? My poor father! Ah, I was not wrong, then, when I felt this to be so.”
“If he be still alive you can save him, and if he be not alive you can still save yourself from this life of poverty and labor. It is the wish of madame, your aunt, of your cousin Étienne, that you do not lose the property which is yours while you are Catholic, but which was in danger of confiscation when your father became Protestant. In view of the relation of the Villeneaux, who are not without influence in high circles, the estates await your return, and once you are Madame Étienne Villeneau they are yours. Am I not candid, mademoiselle?”
“You are. I understand it all but your part in the matter. I confess you seem frank, Monsieur Dupont, but why this extreme interest on your part?”
“You still doubt me? Be it so.” He shrugged his shoulders and changed the subject by saying, “’Tis not so bad a country this, if one had never lived in France.”
“It is a very good country in spite of France. We who are émigrés have brought over our own plants, have planted the vegetables familiar to us, and are cultivating the vine. We have modelled our homes upon those we have left, and we are not strangers.”
“We who are émigrés,” he repeated. “I do not accept the term in the case of yourself. You are still a daughter of France, la belle France.”