"There is no occasion for my mother to trouble herself about such trifling conventions with me," he retorted. "I feel so sure that she hath no desire to claim the slightest kinship with a de Maurel that any formalities of the kind which she seems to contemplate would be a mere farce."
"You are very irreconcilable, M. de Maurel," said Fernande coldly, "and are making your mother and Laurent suffer for the thoughtlessness which I committed a year ago, and of which I would like you to believe that I have since bitterly repented."
"I have no recollection of any thoughtlessness on your part, Mademoiselle ... certainly of none which should cause you any regret."
"Your actions belie your words," she rejoined quietly. "If, as you say, you have not only forgiven but forgotten the foolishness of a year ago, then why have you kept aloof from your mother ... from us all? You were wont to be a constant visitor at Courson, your mother and Laurent have enjoyed your hospitality for the past twelve months. Yet you have not been nigh La Frontenay, and 'tis three days since your return."
"My uncle Gaston is dying," he said curtly; "he and the works have claimed my attention."
"Does that mean, then, that you will come?" she asked, "one day soon when you are not so engaged?"
Then, as he made no reply, she added more insistently: "Your mother and Laurent bore no part whatever in the wrong which I alone committed. M. de Maurel, why should you remain at enmity with them?"
"At enmity, Mademoiselle?—am I at enmity with my mother or with my brother? Surely not."
"Why not go to see them? Why not come to see us all as you used to do?"
"Chiefly, I think," he replied roughly, "because up at La Frontenay no one has any desire to see me. My brother and I have nothing in common—my mother and I still less. You, Mademoiselle Fernande, proved to me a year ago what an utterly ridiculous boor I was, fit only to be jeered at and made game of. Now a bear is not usually a good plaything for women; he is apt to snarl and render himself odious by his antics. He is far better out of the way, believe me."