"Aunt," replied Bertha with a firm voice, "I respected my father and adored my mother. She nursed me, brought me up, educated me. I never left her. My happiest days were spent at her side in Brittany, in the retirement of our Castle of Plouernel, where I spent my first eighteen years, while all that time my father lived at court. I barely saw him once every year for a short time during his transient visits to the castle when the hunting season would bring him to his domains. So you see, my mother has left me numerous tokens of remembrance. They were continuous and loving, profoundly loving. They render, they will ever render her loss—or rather, her absence—irreparable to me, at least in this world. But let us return to Raoul. As I told you a moment ago, he always showed himself, even when still young, cold and even haughty towards me, whenever he accompanied my father into Brittany, and he felt offended at my having my own way of looking at things, a way that frequently was different from his own."
"The reason is, my dear, that for people of our class there is but one way of looking upon a number of things—such as religion, morals, politics—"
"In that case I must be an exception to the general rule; but that is of no consequence. Believe me, aunt, I have the liveliest desire to find myself mistaken with regard to Raoul's sentiments towards me; and, I must admit it, I have been profoundly touched by his request to see me at a time when, as I hear, he is seized with a grave disease, the reality of which I still wish I could doubt. I did not expect such a proof of tenderness on his part. And so, as I said before, I hope Raoul's illness has not grown worse, seeing that, alas! like so many others, he has preserved the prejudice of death, a thing that adds such cruel agonies to all illness."
"The prejudice of death!" repeated the Marchioness, shrugging her shoulders and hardly able to control herself. "That is one of your extravagances! You set yourself up in rebellion against our holy religion!"
"A sublime extravagance!" replied Bertha with a radiant smile. "It suppresses superstitions; it frees us from the terror of decease; it imparts to us the certainty of living anew near those whom we have loved."
"My dear niece, I would take you to be out of your mind, were it not that I know you really derive pleasure from such eccentricities. But however that may be, I have the infirmity of sharing with your brother and with so many other weak minds the vulgar prejudice of death. I hope, and I have every reason to hope, that the state of Raoul's health, although grave, is by no means alarming. Far away from his own country, his family, his friends, but still considering it to be a sacred duty on his part to remain in London in the service of the King our master, he has fallen into a sort of listless languor, a black melancholy, and he relies upon our presence, and yours especially, to dissipate his distemper."
"A distemper of languor?" replied Mademoiselle Plouernel pensively. "It seems to me such a disease is generally preceded by symptoms of dejection and sadness; but Monsieur Noirmont said to us that when he left Raoul, my brother's spirits, good looks and genuinely French mirthfulness eclipsed the most brilliant seigneurs of the court of King Charles II."
"Oh, I doubt not that! Poor Raoul is capable of the greatest sacrifices in order worthily to represent his master, our great King; he would even suppress his physical pains and moral sufferings."
"Excuse me, aunt, but I am unable to understand you. I was not aware that my brother had a political mission to fill."
"And yet there is nothing more simple! Does not your brother, charged with a mission to King Charles II during the absence of the French ambassador Monsieur Croissy, represent his Majesty Louis XIV at London? Consequently, however deep his melancholia may be, is not my nephew bound to conceal it from the eyes of the English court, so as not to be outdone in gracefulness, wit and mirth by the English courtiers, and to continue to eclipse them all in honor of his master? Thus it is that Raoul is fulfilling the duties imposed upon him by his mission to King Charles. But," added the Marchioness, after this plausible answer to her niece's objections, and wishing, moreover, to change the subject of a conversation that embarrassed her, "but by the way of the good King Charles—the name of that gallant and joyful prince leads me back to the subject that we wandered from with this long digression upon my nephew. I must repeat to you what I was saying and which your absentmindedness at the moment prevented you from hearing. I was speaking of the beautiful young Breton lady."