“Ah me! do you think that I resigned myself with pleasure to that war of sarcasm? Nothing is more painful to me than such combats of bitter irony, to which I am forced by the necessity of defending myself from this woman and her friends. You speak of my courage: it does not consist, I assure you, in the display of wicked feelings—but in the power to repress and hide all that I suffer, when I hear myself treated so grossly—in the presence, too, of people that I hate and despise—when, after all, I have never done them any harm, and have only asked to be allowed to live alone, freely and quietly, and see those about me happy.”
“That’s where it is: they envy your happiness, and that which you bestow upon others.”
“And it is my aunt,” cried Adrienne, with indignation, “my aunt, whose whole life has been one long scandal that accuses me in this revolting manner!—as if she did not know me proud and honest enough never to make a choice of which I should be ashamed! Oh! if I ever love, I shall proclaim it, I shall be proud of it: for love, as I understand it, is the most glorious feeling in the world. But, alas!” continued Adrienne, with redoubled bitterness, “of what use are truth and honor, if they do not secure you from suspicions, which are as absurd as they are odious?” So saying, she again pressed her handkerchief to her eyes.
“Come, my dear Mdlle. Adrienne,” said M. Baleinier, in a voice full of the softest unction, “becalm—it is all over now. You have in me a devoted friend.” As he pronounced these last words, he blushed in spite of his diabolical craft.
[Original]
“I know you are my friend,” said Adrienne: “I shall never forget that, by taking my part to-day, you exposed yourself to the resentment of my aunt—for I am not ignorant of her power, which is very great, alas! for evil.”
“As for that,” said the doctor, affecting a profound indifference, “we medical men are pretty safe from personal enmities.”
“Nay, my dear M. Baleinier! Mme. de Saint-Dizier and her friends never forgive,” said the young girl, with a shudder. “It needed all my invincible aversion, my innate horror for all that is base, cowardly, and perfidious, to induce me to break so openly with her. But if death itself were the penalty, I could not hesitate and yet,” she added, with one of those graceful smiles which gave such a charm to her beautiful countenance, “yet I am fond of life: if I have to reproach myself with anything, it is that I would have it too bright, too fair, too harmonious; but then, you know, I am resigned to my faults.”
“Well, come, I am more tranquil,” said the doctor, gayly; “for you smile—that is a good sign.”