Seated upright in her armchair, Madame Dulaurens coldly renewed the attack:
“Now I really thought that M. de Marthenay pleased you. He is very attractive, isn’t he? A good name, a fine figure, and fortune. He is a cavalryman, and rides divinely. He dances perfectly. I chose him in preference to anybody else. And you were going to stay with us. We were to have our part in your happiness, and you want to take this away from us altogether.”
“Mamma!” cried Alice reproachfully.
“Children are horribly ungrateful,” continued her mother. “You, of whom I took so much care in your delicate childhood and during your typhoid fever, now you are already thinking of leaving me!”
Attempting to conceal the selfishness of this complaint, she added:
“If only I were sure that your happiness is there! But not to be able to look after your health; to live in daily fear that you might be ill, so far away—in some garrison where there was no doctor; to be always afraid for the peace and comfort of your home, which I should never see; not to be there to welcome your babies, if God sends you any ... that will be my sad life hereafter.”
Alice, deeply touched by this show of tenderness and motherly devotion, held out her arms.
“Mother, Mother,” she cried, “I will never leave you. I will stay with you.”
This half-victory was so quickly won that Madame Dulaurens, thinking it sufficient, insisted no further on her plans and did not pronounce Armand de Marthenay’s name again.
“Little Alice, my darling little Alice, I have won you back to me,” she said, pressing the girl to her heart. “I love you so. You don’t know how much I love you. I think I love you too much. I want you to be happy.”