The Comtesse Marcelle sighed drearily.
“Yes, when she is married—but——”
“But what,” grandmama queried sharply.
“I sometimes wonder if that marriage will make for Bertrand’s happiness.”
“Bertrand’s happiness,” the old Comtesse echoed with a harsh laugh, “Hark at the sentimental schoolgirl! My dear Marcelle! to hear you talk, one would think you had not lived through twenty-five years of grinding poverty. In Heaven’s name have you not yet realised that the only possible happiness for Bertrand lies in a brilliant marriage. We have plunged too deeply into the stream now, we cannot turn back, we must swim with the tide—or sink—there is no middle-way.”
“I know, I know,” the younger woman replied meekly. “Debts, more debts! more debts! O, my God!” she moaned and buried her face in her hands; “as if they had not wrought enough mischief already. More debts, and if——”
“And now you talk like a fool,” the old Comtesse broke in tartly. “Would you have had the girl come here and find that all your carpets were in rags, your cushions moth-eaten, the family silver turned to lead or brass? Would you have had her find the Comtesse de Ventadour in a patched and darned gown, waited on by a lad from the village in sabots and an unwashed shirt that reeked of manure? Yes,” she went on in that firm, decisive tone against which no one at the château had ever dared to make a stand, “yes, I did advise Bertrand to borrow a little more money, in order that his family should not be shamed before his fiancée. But you may rest assured, my good Marcelle, that the usurers who lent him the money would not have done it were they not satisfied that he would in the very near future be able to meet all his liabilities. You live shut away from all the civilised world, but every one in Paris knows that M. le Comte de Ventadour is co-heir with his fiancée, Mlle. de Peyron-Bompar, to the Mont-Pahon millions. Bertrand had no difficulty in raising the money, he will have none in repaying it, and Jaume Deydier is already regretting, I make no doubt, the avarice which prompted him to refuse to help his seigneurs in their short-lived difficulty.”
The Comtesse Marcelle uttered a cry, almost of horror.
“Deydier!” she exclaimed, “surely, Madame, you did not ask him to——?”
“I asked him to lend me five thousand louis, until the marriage contract between Bertrand and Mlle. Peyron-Bompar was signed. I confess that I did him too much honour, for he refused. Bah! those louts!” grandmama added with lofty scorn, “they have no idea of honour.”