The Wounded Name

by D. K. Broster

"Of course, he sent it as a ruse," murmured Avoye out of her stiffened lips.

Mme de la Rocheterie took no notice.

"You believed it—you believe it!—My God, no wonder Aymar would not stay under the same roof with you! And this is your disagreement, your lovers' tiff, after which you dare to hope he will return to you as if nothing had happened. A La Rocheterie come cringing back to the feet of a woman who could believe him capable of such an infamy! I am glad that he left the house instantly!"

Avoye tried dizzily to think. The fierce, proud old woman, it was clear, would once more pay no heed if she were to repeat the explanation about a ruse. She did not need that explanation for a moment, she who had met the accusation merely with ridicule. Pray God, then, that that was all the impression it would ever make on her! Some atonement, therefore, she herself could offer for the wrong she had done Aymar, by consenting to be sacrificed to that end . . . by holding her tongue and not justifying herself . . . by not saying that it was true, for he had told her so with his own lips . . .

She bowed her head. She made herself, as far as she could, deaf to what her grandmother was saying; she took the lashes in silence, for Aymar's sake—though he could never know . . .

This she heard, after other words:

"I had sent for you to tell you that, unless Aymar could be induced to marry someone else, you would have to marry him, after having kept him dangling all these years, the last of his name. But to demand such a sacrifice of him after this would be infamous! He is free of you at last—I thank God for it!"

It must surely be almost over now. But Avoye raised her head to see her grandmother looking at her with that emotion so terrible to witness in a person of one's own blood—hatred. Drawn and aged enough now, the Vicomtesse said, with astonishing venom, "If only the Fates had not made you that selfish and disastrous creature commonly known as a virtuous woman! Or was it calculated wisdom that has made you refrain from the attempt to sweep Aymar off his feet? You could have done it, I believe, if you had wished, for he has hotter blood than you think—and even in this new century men are still men. . . . But you knew that it was better to keep yourself the unattainable, because a lover may get tired of the attainable.—Yes, if you had been more . . . accommodating . . . he might have been tired of you by now, and have made a marriage worthy of him. And his wife, I fancy, would——"

"Stop, Grand'mère stop!" cried Avoye, trembling from head to foot, and putting out her hands as though to ward off less the insults than the atrocious regret which beat through the old woman's words. "Stop, you cannot know what you are saying!"

It was probable that this was true, though, save for the glitter in her eyes and a slight half-palsied movement of her hands, Mme de la Rocheterie's manner did not suggest loss of self-control. She went on exactly where she had been interrupted: