“In fact, I may have been too easily frightened.”
The marquis assented by a gesture.
“Yes, much too easily, my dear. And, between us, I would not say much about it. How could the officers help accusing our Jacques if his own mother suspects him?”
The marchioness had taken up the telegram, and was reading it over once more.
“And yet,” she said, answering her own objections, “who in my place would not have been frightened? This name of Claudieuse especially”—
“Why? It is the name of an excellent and most honorable gentleman,—the best man in the world, in spite of his sea-dog manners.”
“Jacques hates him, my dear.”
“Jacques does not mind him any more than that.”
“They have repeatedly quarrelled.”
“Of course. Claudieuse is a furious legitimist; and as such he always talks with the utmost contempt of all of us who have been attached to the Orleans family.”