When she would gently remonstrate, Raoul’s beautiful eyes would fill with tears, and in a sad, humble tone he would say:
“Alas! you are right to refuse me this gratification. What claim have I? I must not forget that I am only the poor son of Valentine, not the rich banker’s child!”
This touching repentance wrung her heart, so that she always ended by granting him more than he had asked for. The poor boy had suffered so much that it was her duty to console him, and atone for her past neglect.
She soon discovered that he was jealous and envious of his two brothers—for, after all, they were his brothers—Abel and Lucien.
“You never refuse them anything,” he would resentfully say: “they were fortunate enough to enter life by the golden gate. Their every wish is gratified; they enjoy wealth, position, home affection, and have a splendid future awaiting them.”
“But what is lacking to your happiness, my son? Have you not everything that money can give? and are you not first in my affections?” asked his distressed mother.
“What do I want? Apparently nothing, in reality everything. Do I possess anything legitimately? What right have I to your affection, to the comforts and luxuries you heap upon me, to the name I bear? Is not my life an extortion, my very birth a fraud?”
When Raoul talked in this strain, she would weep, and overwhelm him with caresses and gifts, until she imagined that every jealous thought was vanished from his mind.
As spring approached, she told Raoul she designed him to spend the summer in the country, near her villa at St. Germain. She wanted to have him with her all the time, and this was the only way of gratifying her wish. She was surprised to find her proposal readily acquiesced in. In a few days he told her he had rented a little house at Vesinet, and intended having his furniture moved into it.
“Then, just think, dear mother, what a happy summer we will spend together!” he said, with beaming eyes.