"Then he sent for you yesterday evening?" Hortense said, in a tone of displeasure. "I knew that a storm was brewing and tried to avert it, but I did not suppose that it would burst forth on your first evening."
"Yes, my grandfather was extremely ungracious," said Raoul, also in high displeasure. "He took me to task about my follies as if they had been state offences. I had confessed all to you, mamma, and hoped for your advocacy."
"My advocacy?" the Countess repeated, bitterly. "You ought to know how powerless I am when you are under discussion. What can maternal love and maternal right avail with a man who is accustomed ruthlessly to subdue everything to his will, and to break what will not bend? I have suffered intensely from your father's being so absolutely dependent that I continue to be so after his death. I have no property of my own, and this dependence constitutes a fetter that is often galling enough."
"You are wrong, mamma," Raoul interposed. "My grandfather does not control me through our pecuniary dependence upon him, but by his personal characteristics. There is something in his eye, in his voice, that I cannot defy. I can set myself in opposition to all the world, but not to him."
"Yes, he has schooled you admirably. This is the result of an education designed to rob me of all influence with you, and to attach you solely to himself. You are impressed by his tone of command, his imperious air, while to me they merely represent the tyranny to which I have been forced to submit ever since my marriage. But it cannot last forever."
She breathed a sigh of relief as she uttered the last words. Raoul made no reply; he leaned his head on his hand and looked down.
"I wrote you that you would find Hertha and her mother here," the Countess began again. "I was quite surprised by the change in Hertha; since we saw her years ago she has developed into a beauty of the first class. Do you not think so?"
"Yes, she is very beautiful, and thoroughly spoiled,--full of caprices. I found that out yesterday."
Hortense slightly shrugged her shoulders. "She is conscious of being a wealthy heiress, and, moreover, she is the only child of a very weak mother, who has no will of her own. You have a will, however, Raoul, and will know how to treat your future wife, I do not doubt. Upon this point I find myself, strangely enough, absolutely in harmony with your grandfather, who wishes to see you in possession of all the Steinrück estates. The income of the elder line is not very large, and little more was left to your grandfather than a hunting castle, while Hertha, on the other hand, is heiress to all the other property, and must one day inherit her mother's very large jointure. Moreover, you and she are the two last scions of the Steinrück race, and a union between you two is everyway desirable."
"Yes, if family considerations alone were in question. You took good care to impress this upon us when we were but children," Raoul said, with a tinge of bitterness in his tone that did not escape his mother, who looked at him in surprise.