“No, dearest, not to you—to Monsieur Daunay. She is to marry him. She is with his cousin now.”
Her vigil had evidently been tearless; even the arrival that morning of the fatal letter had not melted her frozen terror. But now, as she looked speechlessly at him, the long rise of a sob heaved her breast; her hands slid from his; she sank into a chair, and resting her crossed arms upon the table, she bent her head upon them and wept and shuddered. In the sunny stillness of the room the young man stood beside her. He felt an alien before this intimate, maternal anguish. She did not weep for long. She presently sat upright, dried her eyes, and pushed back her hair, keeping her hand pressed tightly, for a moment, on her forehead, as if in an effort to regain her long habit of self-control; and as if to gain time, to hide the painful effort from him, she pointed to Claire’s letter. “Read it,” she said.
It was Claire’s most callous, most ugly self; its passion of hatred and revenge hardly masked itself in the metallic tone of mockery. They were both well rid of her—her dear Mamma and her dear Mamma’s suitor. They were far too good for her, and she justified them by showing them how far too bad she was for them. Pursuit and reproaches were useless. She feared that her dear Mamma’s ermine robe of respectability must be permanently spotted by a daughter notoriously naughty—for she did not intend to hide her new situation. But perhaps the daughter could be lived down as the daughter’s father had been. And on, and on—short phrases, lava-jets from the seething volcano of base vulgarity; Damier felt them burn his own cheek while he read.
Madame Vicaud’s eyes were on his when he raised them; but quickly looking away from him, she said: “It came this morning. Last night I could not understand that telegram; I could not believe that she would not return. I felt that something was being hidden from me; it was like battling in a stifling black air. And then—this came.” He had laid the letter beside her, and she touched it with her finger, as if it had been a snake. “This—this end of all!”
“She is safe,” Damier repeated rather helplessly.
“Safe!” the mother echoed. Leaning her head against the chair-back, she closed her eyes. Lovely and dignified even in her disgrace, nothing could smirch and nothing could abase her; she had never looked so noble as at this moment of dreadful defeat and overthrow. “And how have you saved her?” she asked. “What did Monsieur Daunay have to offer—what did you have to offer—to bring her back—since it was not repentance? It was not repentance?”
“No; but I believe that she was glad to come. I—I dowered Claire,” said Damier, after a momentary pause.
Madame Vicaud, still keeping her eyes closed, was silent. He leaned over her and took her hand. “All that I have is yours. You dowered her, let us say.”
“What do you mean by dowering her?” she asked.
“I have given her two thirds of my income for life.”