"Mlle. Herminie—the music teacher?" repeated Madame de Senneterre, with a contemptuous emphasis on the last word. "You are that young person, I suppose."
"Yes, madame la duchesse," replied the poor girl, trembling like a leaf, and without venturing to raise her eyes.
"Well, mademoiselle, you are satisfied, I trust? You have had the audacity to insist that I should come here, and here I am."
"I felt constrained—madame la duchesse—to solicit the honour—that—that—"
"Indeed! And what right have you to presume to make this insolent demand?"
"Madame!" exclaimed the hunchback, threateningly.
But as Madame de Senneterre uttered these last insulting words, Herminie, who had seemed so terrified, so utterly crushed until then, lifted her head proudly, a slight tinge of colour suffused her cheeks, and, raising her large blue eyes for the first time to the face of Gerald's mother, she replied in firm though gentle tones:
"I have never felt that I had the right to expect even the slightest mark of deference from you, madame. On the contrary, I only desired to—to testify the respect that I felt for your authority, madame, by declaring to M. de Senneterre that I could not and would not accept his hand without his mother's consent."
"And I—a person of my age and position—must humiliate myself by making the first advances to mademoiselle?"
"I am an orphan, madame, without a relative in the world. I could designate no one else for you to approach on the subject, and my dignity would not permit me to go to you and solicit—"