"And yet nothing seemed more sincere than the extreme astonishment with which Monsieur Noirmont was struck when he learned from us of my brother's illness, and—"
"Good God, my dear, I wish I had your facility for doubting facts," said the Marchioness, impatiently interrupting her niece; "but I am not allowed to entertain any such doubts. I only console myself in advance with the thought of the excellent influence that will be exercised upon Raoul's health by my presence, and yours especially—"
"Mine?" answered Bertha sadly; "I hope it will be so."
"That should be, to you, not a hope, but a certainty."
"My elder brother has until now shown so much coolness towards me—"
"It is not a reproach—it is the expression of a sorrow. For the rest, Raoul and I have spent our childhood and the first years of our youth almost as strangers to each other. He lived near my father, I near my mother. I can not be surprised at Raoul's indifference towards me."
"You greatly err, my dear, with regard to what you wrongly, very wrongly, term his indifference. Do you forget that by virtue of his right of primogeniture, with the death of my brother, he has become the head of our family? The quality of head of our family confers upon Raoul the full authority that your father and mother were vested with during their lives over their children. As a matter of course, such authority imposes upon Raoul, in his relations towards you and Guy, your second brother, a certain degree of reserve, of gravity, I might say of severity that must in no wise be confounded with indifference. He, on the contrary, is exceptionally attached to you. But I must say—and I beg you not to see in my words even the shadow of a reproach," the Marchioness added, insinuatingly, "I must admit that a certain turn to freedom in your disposition, a certain stubborn way of looking at some things from a viewpoint that is wholly opposed to Raoul's, may have occasionally, I shall not say made him take umbrage at you, but may have given some uneasiness to the warm solicitude that he entertains for you—seeing that it is his duty to fill towards you the strict functions of a father."
"I might answer you, aunt, that Raoul showed himself cold and severe towards me before the loss of my father and my poor mother—a loss that would be irreparable to me but for the certainty of some day re-rising into new life with that idolized mother, in the spirit world where we shall all meet again."
"Your father's loss must, accordingly, be less irreparable to you than your mother's," observed the Marchioness with some bitterness; "to say the least, the difference that you establish in your grief for the departed ones, is strange."