"That we do!" responded Madeleine. "Why was it, Maurice?"
"The reason chiefly concerns you, Madeleine."
"Me! You are jesting."
"Not at all; I came home because I remembered that to-day was your twenty-first birthday. I would not be absent upon your birthday, though I did not know that your reaching your majority was to be celebrated by a grand dinner."
"Madeleine's birthday was not thought of when your father invited his friends to dinner," remarked the countess, curtly.
Maurice went on without heeding this explanation.
"I have brought you a little birthday token. Will you wear it for my sake?"
As he spoke, he opened the case and took out a Roman brooch.
Madeleine's eyes sparkled with a dewy lustre that threatened to shape itself into a tear. Before she could speak, Bertha cried out,—