"My child! I can make allowances for your weakness, which renders it the more imperative in me to evince a necessary degree of severity."
"Severity!" cried M. de Brévannes, with a burst of sardonic laughter—"severity! Upon my word I like the word vastly. It seems then that I am here to be lectured by you into a right understanding of my duties. May I ask if you are aware to whom you are speaking?"
"Too, too well!—to the destroyer of my good, my innocent child."
"You use strong language, my good sir; your revolutionary reminiscences disturb your brain."
"Bertha!" said the engraver, with stern hauteur—"take this man from my sight!"
"Come—come, Charles, I pray—I beseech you! adieu, dearest father, till Thursday next,—pardon me for quitting you so abruptly now—possibly I may come and see you again to-morrow," added poor Bertha, anxious at all risks to terminate so painful a discussion as the present.
"Since, sir, you have taken upon you to dispense advice," interrupted M. de Brévannes, "perhaps you might judiciously recommend your daughter not to adopt the unwise plan of treating her husband with coldness and contempt, after having justly awakened his jealousy."
"Bertha!" said old Raimond, "what am I to understand by these words?"
"Ah, Charles, is it well of you to recall the scene of——"
"Be assured, madam, whomever else you may impose on, I am not the dupe of your affected delicacy—your over-strained scruples—you are carrying on some base, some disgraceful intrigue, but rely upon it, I will detect it."