"Your daughters indifferent!" exclaimed Dagobert, in astonishment. "You make them such a reproach?"
"Oh! I do not blame them. They have hardly had time to know me."
"Not had time to know you?" returned the soldier, in a tone of remonstrance, and warming up in his turn. "Ah! of what did their mother talk to them, except you? and I too! what could I teach your children except to know and love you?"
"You take their part—that is natural—they love you better than they do me," said the marshal, with growing bitterness. Dagobert felt himself so painfully affected, that he looked at the marshal without answering.
"Yes!" continued the other; "yes! it may be base and ungrateful—but no matter!—Twenty times I have felt jealous of the affectionate confidence which my children display towards you, while with me they seem always to be in fear. If their melancholy faces ever grow animated for a moment, it is in talking to you, in seeing you; while for me they have nothing but cold respect—and that kills me. Sure of the affection of my children, I would have braved and surmounted every difficulty—" Then, seeing that Dagobert rushed towards the door which led to the chamber of Rose and Blanche, the marshal asked: "Where are you going?"
"For your daughters, general."
"What for?"
"To bring them face to face with you—to tell them: 'My children, your father thinks that you do not love him.'—I will only say that—and then you will see."
"Dagobert! I forbid you to do it," cried the marshal, hastily.
"I don't care for that—you have no right to be unjust to the poor children," said the soldier, as he again advanced towards the door.