She thought that Raoul was too shrewd to be acting in this shameful way, ruinously to his own interests, if there were not some secret motive at the bottom of it all. She saw that this persecution was more feigned than real.
So thoroughly was she convinced of this, that, had it only concerned herself alone, she would have firmly resisted the oppression, certain that the threatened exposure would never take place.
Recalling, with a shudder, certain looks of Clameran, she guessed the truth, that the object of all this underhand work was to force her to become his wife.
Determined on making the sacrifice, in spite of her repugnance toward the man, she wished to have the deed done at once; anything was preferable to this terrible anxiety, to the life of torture which Raoul made her lead. She felt that her courage might fail if she waited and suffered much longer.
“The sooner you see M. de Clameran the better for us, aunt,” she said, after talking the project over.
The next day Mme. Fauvel called on the marquis at the Hotel du Louvre, having sent him a note announcing her intended visit.
He received her with cold, studied politeness, like a man who had been misunderstood and had been unjustly wounded.
After listening to her report of Raoul’s scandalous behavior, he became very indignant, and swore that he would soon make him repent of his heartlessness.
But when Mme. Fauvel told of the immense sums of money forced from her, Clameran seemed confounded, as if he could not believe it.
“The worthless rascal!” he exclaimed, “the idea of his audacity! Why, during the last four months, I have given him more than twenty thousand francs, which I would not have done except to prevent him from applying to you, as he constantly threatened to do.”