He considered himself fortunate in finding both Madame de Gramont and Count Tristan at home. The former received him with as much cordiality as her constitutional stiffness permitted, but the latter appeared to be in a half-lethargic state; he scarcely rose to welcome his visitor, spoke feebly and indistinctly, and, as he sank back in his seat, leaned his flushed face upon his hands.
"My visit is somewhat early," remarked Lord Linden, "but I was impatient to see you, for I came to speak of your niece, Mademoiselle de Gramont."
The count looked up eagerly.
Madame de Gramont replied before her son could speak, "The person whom you designate as my niece has forfeited all right to that title, and is not recognized by her family."
"I nevertheless venture to hope," returned the nobleman with marked suavity, "that, under existing circumstances, the alienation will only be temporary."
The countess broke out angrily: "The impertinence of this young person exceeds all bounds! She gave us to understand that she possessed, at least, the modesty to hide her real name, and had no desire to disgrace her family by proclaiming that it was borne by a person in her degraded condition; but this, it seems, is only another evidence of her duplicity and covert manœuvring; she has taken care that your lordship should become acquainted with a relationship which we can never cease to deplore."
"You do her wrong," replied Lord Linden, with becoming spirit; "I regret to say she so scrupulously concealed her rank that I was led into a great error,—one for which I now desire amply to atone. It was from M. Maurice de Gramont that I learned the true name of the so-called Mademoiselle Melanie."
"Maurice!" cried the countess and her son together.
"I received the information from him last evening," said Lord Linden, "and I have now come to solicit the hand of Mademoiselle de Gramont in marriage."
The suggestion that Madeleine could thus magically be raised out of her present humiliating condition, and that all her short-comings might be covered by the broad cloak of a title, took such delightful possession of the haughty lady's mind that there was no room even for surprise. While Count Tristan was vehemently shaking hands with Lord Linden, and stammering out broken and unintelligible sentences, his mother said gravely,—