“Pity you did not find that out sooner, before you ran after that vixen who has thrown you over.”
“Better men than I have gone blindly past their happiness. Not many have had the luck to turn back.”
“Too late, M. le Comte,” Deydier riposted coldly. “I told Nicolette yesterday that never, with my consent, will she be your wife.”
“You will kill her, Monsieur Deydier.”
“Not I. She is proud and soon she will understand.”
“We love one another, Nicolette will understand nothing save that I love her. You may forbid the marriage,” Bertrand went on vehemently, “but you cannot forbid Nicolette to love me. We love one another; we’ll belong to one another, whatever you may do or say.”
“Whatever Madame, your grandmother, may say?” retorted Deydier with a sneer. Then as Bertrand made no reply to that taunt, he added more kindly:
“Come, my dear Bertrand, look on the affair as a man. I have known you ever since you were in your cradle: would I speak to you like this if I had not the happiness of my child to defend?”
Bertrand drew a quick, impatient sigh.
“That is where you are wrong, Monsieur Deydier,” he said, “Nicolette’s happiness is bound up in me.”