“I suppose that his creditors, when they heard that the marriage was broken off, flocked around him like vultures.—Did he not speak of that?”
Slowly Marcelle raised herself from her couch. Her eyes circled with deep purple rims looked large and glowing, as they remained fixed upon her mother-in-law.
“No,” she said tonelessly, “Bertrand is too broken-hearted at present to think of money.”
“He will have to mend his heart then,” grandmama rejoined dryly, “those sharks will be after him soon.”
Marcelle threw back her head, and for a moment looked almost defiant:
“The debts which he contracted, he did at your bidding, Madame,” she said.
“Of course he did, my good Marcelle,” old Madame retorted coldly, “but the creditors will want paying all the same. If the marriage had come about, this would have been easy enough, as I told you at the time. Bertrand was a fool not to have known how to win that jade’s affections.”
A cry of indignation rose to the mother’s throat.
“Oh!”
“Eh, what?” Madame riposted unmoved. “Young men have before now succeeded in gaining a woman’s love, even when she sat on a mountain of money-bags and he had not even one to fasten to his saddle-bow. It should have been easier for Bertrand with his physique and his accomplishments to win a woman’s love than it will be for him to pay his debts.”