Mademoiselle Marguerite shrugged her shoulders ironically, and remained for a moment silent. She was very proud, and her pride had been cruelly wounded; but reason told her that a continuation of this scene would render a prolonged sojourn in the General’s house impossible; and where could she go, without exciting malevolent remarks? Whom could she ask an asylum of? Still this consideration alone would not have sufficed to silence her. But she remembered that a quarrel and a rupture with the Fondeges would certainly imperil the success of her plans. “So I will swallow even this affront,” she said to herself; and then in a tone of melancholy bitterness, she remarked, aloud: “A man cannot set a very high value on his name when he offers it to a woman whom he knows absolutely nothing about.”
“Excuse me—you forget that my mother——”
“Your mother has only known me for a week.”
An expression of intense surprise appeared on the lieutenant’s face. “Is it possible?” he murmured.
“Your father has met me five or six times at the table of the Count de Chalusse, who was his friend—but what does he know of me?” resumed Mademoiselle Marguerite. “That I came to the Hotel de Chalusse a year ago, and that the count treated me like a daughter—that is all! Who I am, where I was reared, and how, and what my past life has been, these are matters that M. de Fondege knows nothing whatever about.”
“My parents told me that you were the daughter of the Count de Chalusse, mademoiselle.”
“What proof have they of it? They ought to have told you that I was an unfortunate foundling, with no other name than that of Marguerite.”
“Oh!”
“They ought to have told you that I am poor, very poor, and that I should probably have been reduced to the necessity of toiling for my daily bread, if it had not been for them.”
An incredulous smile curved the lieutenant’s lips. He fancied that Mademoiselle Marguerite only wished to prove his disinterestedness, and this thought restored his assurance. “Perhaps you are exaggerating a little, mademoiselle,” he replied.