“But why?” Bertrand exclaimed almost involuntarily. “In Heaven’s name, why?”
“You could ask her,” grandmama retorted quietly.
“Mme. de Mont-Pahon must understand that I seek my own friends, how and where I choose——”
“Your great-aunt would probably retort that she will then seek her heir also where and how she chooses—as well as Rixende’s future husband——”
Then as Bertrand in the excess of his shame and mortification buried his head in his hands, she went up to him, and placed her wrinkled aristocratic hand upon his shoulder.
“There, there,” she said almost gently, “don’t be childish, my dear Bertrand. Alas! when one is poor, one is always kissing the rod. All you want now is patience. Once Rixende is your wife, and my obstinate sister has left her millions to you both, and she and I have gone to join the great majority, you can please yourself in the matter of your friends.”
“It is so shameful to be poor,” Bertrand murmured bitterly.
“Yes, it is,” the old woman assented dryly. “That is the reason why I wish to drag you out of all this poverty and humiliation. But do not make the task too hard for me, Bertrand. I am old, and your mother is feeble. If I were to go you would soon drift down the road of destiny in the footsteps of your father.”
“My father?”
“Your father like you was weak and vacillating. Sunk in the slough of debt, enmeshed in a network of obligations which he had not the moral strength to meet, he blew out his brains, when broke the dawn of the inevitable day of reckoning.”