“You are conscious of your own falsehood, but you can scarcely be conscious of how base and vile you are. Your mother, when I came to-day, was hoping that I had come to ask her for your hand; she believed that I loved you, and hoped it.”
Claire, in her sullen recoil, still remained sunken and panting in her chair.
“Well, then! And what have you got to say to us both, then, if you gave us both cause for such a supposition? What have you meant by it all?”
“What I meant from the beginning I can best define by telling you that to-day I asked your mother to marry me.”
Claire sat speechless and motionless. The words seemed to have arrested thought, and to have nailed her to her chair. Damier looked at Madame Vicaud. Her hands had dropped from her face, and she met his eyes.
“The truth was allowed me?” he said.
“It is always allowed,” she answered.
Her face was so stricken, so ghastly, that Damier, almost forgetting in his great solicitude the hateful presence in the room, leaned over her, taking her hand.
“Bear it. It is better to have it all over. And, in a sense, it is my own fault. I should have spoken to you sooner—defined what I meant from the first.”
“So,” Claire said suddenly. Her smoldering eyes, while they spoke, had gone from one to the other. “So; this is what it all meant! Indeed, I cannot blame myself for not having guessed it. You in love with my mother! Or, shall we not more truthfully say, she in love with you?—the explanation, as a rule, you know, of these odd amorous episodes. I begin to understand. I did not suspect a rival in my own mother. Clever Mamma!”