The countess had now recovered her voice, and said, in a tone trembling with indignation, "It is infamous!"
"A degradation we could never have anticipated!" rejoined Count Tristan.
"She has disgraced her family,—disgraced our proud name forever!" responded the countess.
"Do not say that, aunt!" pleaded Bertha. "She has not even used your name, though it is as rightfully hers as yours. Do you not observe that she has only allowed herself to be called by her middle name, and that every one speaks of her as Mademoiselle Melanie?"
Bertha, as she spoke, bent caressingly over her aunt, and took her hand. But the attempt to soften the infuriated aristocrat was futile.
The countess replied, with increasing wrath, "I tell you she has humiliated herself and us to the last degree! She has brought shame upon our heads!"
Gaston de Bois was walking up and down the room, thrusting his fingers through his hair, flinging out his arms spasmodically, and, now and then, giving vent to a muttered ejaculation, which sounded alarmingly emphatic. When he heard these words, he could restrain himself no longer. He came boldly forward, and planting himself directly in front of the countess, unawed by her forbidding manner, exclaimed,—
"No, madame; that I deny! Mademoiselle de Gramont has brought no shame upon her family!"
"She no longer belongs to my family!" retorted the countess. "I disown her henceforward and forever!"