“Suppose, my dear Bertrand,” he said slowly, “suppose I were to take you at your word. On your honour you have assured me that Nicolette’s fortune never once entered your head. Very well! Go back now and tell Madame your grandmother that you love my daughter, that your life’s happiness is bound up in hers and hers in yours, but that I am not in a position to give her a dowry. I am reputed rich, but I have no capital to dispose of and I have certain engagements which I must fulfil before I can afford the luxury of paying your debts. I may give Nicolette a few hundred louis a year, pin money, but that is all. One moment, I pray you,” Deydier added, seeing that hot words of protest had already risen to Bertrand’s lips. “I am not giving you a supposition. I am telling you a fact. If you love Nicolette sufficiently to lead a life of usefulness and simplicity with her, here in her old home, you shall have her. Let old Madame come and ask me for my daughter’s hand, on your behalf, you shall have her: but my money, no!”
For a long while after that there was silence between the two men. Jaume Deydier had once more resumed his fateful pacing up and down the room. There was a grim, set smile upon his face, but every time his eyes rested on Bertrand, a sullen fire seemed to blaze within them.
A pall of despair had descended once more on Bertrand, all the darker, all the more suffocating for the brief ray of hope that lightened it yesterday. In his heart, he knew that the old man was right. When he had set out this morning to speak with Deydier, he had done so under the firm belief that Nicolette’s fortune expressed in so many words by her father would soon dispel grandmama’s objection to her lowly birth. He hoped that he would return from that interview bringing with him such dazzling financial prospects that old Madame herself would urge and approve of the marriage. Like all those who are very young, he was so convinced of the justice and importance of his cause, that it never entered his mind that his advocacy of it would result in failure.
Failure and humiliation!
He, a Comte de Ventadour, had asked for the hand of a peasant wench and it had been refused. Only now did he realise quite how low his family had sunk, that in the eyes of this descendant of lacqueys, his name was worth less than nothing.
Failure, humiliation and sorrow! Sorrow because the briefest searching of his heart had at once revealed the fact that he was not prepared to take Nicolette without her fortune, that he was certainly not prepared to give up his career in order to live the life of usefulness at the mas, which Jaume Deydier dangled before him. Oh! he had no illusion on these points. Yesterday when old Madame threatened him with an appeal to the King, there was still the hope that in view of such hopeless financial difficulties as beset him, His Majesty might consent to a mésalliance with the wealthy daughter of a worthy manufacturer of Provence. But what Deydier demanded to-day meant that he would have to resign his commission and become an unpaid overseer on a farm, that he would have to renounce his career, his friends, every prospect of ever rising again to the position which his family had once occupied.
Poor little Nicolette! He loved her, yes! but not enough for that. To renounce anything for her sake had not formed a part of his affection. And love without sacrifice—what is it but the pale, sickly ghost of the exacting Master of us all?
Poor little Nicolette! he sighed, and right through the silence of the dull winter’s morning there came, faintly echoing, another sigh which was just like a sob.
Both the men swung round simultaneously and gazed upon the doorway. Nicolette stood there under the lintel. Unable to lie still in bed, while her life’s happiness was held in the balance, she had dressed herself and softly crept downstairs.
“Nicolette!” Bertrand exclaimed. And at sight of her all the tenderness of past years, the ideal love of Paul for Virginie surged up in his heart like a great wave of warmth and of pity. “When did you come down?” She came forward into the room, treading softly like a little mouse, her face pale and her lips slightly quivering.