“Too late to go over to the mas this afternoon,” he added decisively.
A look of great joy lit up Micheline’s peaky little face.
“Then you are coming, Bertrand,” she cried impulsively.
“Not to-night,” he said, “because it is late. But to-morrow we’ll go together. I would like to—to thank Jaume Deydier for——”
“Oh, my dear,” his mother broke in anxiously, “there is nothing for which you need thank Jaume Deydier. Your grandmother would not wish it.”
“No one,” Bertrand said emphatically, “may dictate to me on a point of honour. I know where my duty lies. To-morrow I am going to the mas.”
Marcelle de Ventadour’s pale face took on an expression of painful anxiety.
“If she thought I had said anything,” she murmured.
Bertrand bent down and kissed her tenderly.
“Grandmama shall know nothing,” he said reassuringly; “but for once I must act as I wish, not as she commands. As you said just now, mother dear, we must not think of ourselves, but of our name, and we must try to wipe away the shame that clings round my father’s memory.”