At least, so it seemed to. It was a unique situation: on the one side great houses, great wealth, great stakes in the country, and a fluttering crew of prospectors waiting to negotiate their values for the benefit of a mistress who disregarded them all; on the other the mistress herself living in humble lodgings on a few centesimi a day. And this state of things held for quite a month after the inquiry.
“It makes you an important person,” said Jacques Balmat to Martha. “You are approached and courted like a queen’s confidante. I hope your silly little head will not be turned by it all.”
“Jacques, she is dying of love, and what right have you or I to say that she ought to live?”
“The right, my girl, of dutiful children to uphold the natural law. She, too, is not so independent but she must owe her father a life. It makes no difference that he crossed her plans for herself. Besides, are we so certain that one we will not name has made himself unworthy of her? It rests on our conjecture, and that is the devil’s word for scandal. They whisper that the old man is dying.”
“My God! what is that you say?”
“I only repeat what I have heard. It is that madama’s obstinacy is slowly killing him. It is certainly aggravating, when one is starving, to see a fine feast spread just out of one’s reach.”
Martha went with her information straight to Yolande. That Marchioness of shadows was a good deal altered during the last month. Grief, where a flawless constitution defies its corrosion, retaliates by turning all into stone. She was white and unimpressionable as a statue. Martha dared an ultimatum.
“You would blame yourself, I am sure, my lady, if death were suddenly to end the misunderstanding between you and your father.”
The blue unearthly eyes were turned swift upon her with a look of horror.
“Death!” she whispered.