“I see now the drift of your history,” said Mrs. Desfrayne, in a tone which showed that she was wounded to the depths of her heart. “It is the hackneyed story of the young man who falls ill marrying the handsome young woman who nurses him.”
Captain Desfrayne turned aside, and took a hasty stride to and fro; then he returned, resuming his position.
“She was, or pretended to be, full of joy and gratitude on my recovery. During the days of my convalescence, she spoke to me fully of her state of bondage, her anger at the injustice done her, her desire for liberty, and affected to make no secret of what she averred was desperate love for myself. My sympathies were enlisted for her; my vanity was aroused in her favor. I at length——”
“Asked her to marry you?” laughed his mother.
“No. Her agreement with the manager bound her for ten years, under a heavy penalty. I desired that she should leave the stage, although I felt it would be next to an impossibility to marry this girl. I remembered your strong prejudices against stage-performers——”
“Ah! You did think of me once.”
“I rarely forgot you in my most insane moments. I thought of my position, of the traditions of my family. I would have freed her if I could, and then fled her presence; for I felt it would be impossible to make this girl your daughter, though her name was stainless, and she was superbly beautiful, and gifted with talents of a certain kind. But I could not rescue her by money from the clutches of the old wolf who had laid a claw upon her. It would have needed thousands, and I should perhaps have left myself penniless, and—and looking very like a fool,” Paul added, with a cynical laugh.
“You married the girl, then?” said Mrs. Desfrayne eagerly, anxious to ascertain the exact position of her son, and desirous of hurrying him to an immediate acknowledgment.
“I offered to assist her in taking flight to Paris. At least, I believed the suggestion was mine, but later I recollected that the entire plan was arranged by herself, under advice of the old woman who attended her. She was restless and impatient until we had completed every preparation to leave Florence forever, as she intended. I cannot realize how it came about that I was like a puppet in her hands.”
Mrs. Desfrayne shrugged her shoulders with a kind of disdainful compassion.