But Madame Dulaurens went on savagely defending her own and giving her unhappy defenceless victim one wound after another.
“I cannot tell you anything definite, Madame, one way or the other. I will faithfully submit your offer to my daughter and let you know her answer soon. It is the fashion nowadays to consult young girls about their inclinations. But I foresee that the prospect of a separation cannot fail to frighten the dear child, for she has been accustomed to be near me, near us. We have never left each other. I admire your strength of mind. One of your girls is a nun in Paris, is she not? Two of your sons are in Tonkin. Captain Guibert is going back to Algiers. How brave you are, and what an example to all those mothers who love their children too much!”
“And so you think I love them less than those other mothers do,” Madame Guibert would have liked to answer. “Every time they left me my heart was torn, yet I bore them as I could, all those heartrending good-byes, and I said nothing, fearing to weaken them who were leaving me to go abroad and fill a wider sphere, or to hamper them by keeping them beside me. I have always encouraged them to use all the talents that God gave them. And what you do not know, Madame, is that separation, far from lessening a mother’s and a son’s love, purifies and ennobles it. It takes away their natural selfishness and invests them with that immortal beauty of sacrifice, in which joy and devotion are mingled.”
But her lips remained speechless. Later she remembered all the minutest details of this scene, only to be intensely humiliated by it and even to see in it, in her religious feeling, the punishment of the too great pride that she had in the number and qualities of her children.
Madame Dulaurens had not stopped talking long.
“Alice is hesitating by nature,” she continued. “She is still so young—a mere child! There were other offers before yours. This is a confidence, of course. They have this advantage that they would not take our daughter from us. It is a great point in Alice’s eyes. Nobility, fortune, all are there. If the Captain would only consent not to leave Chambéry, to resign when necessary, to live near us, near you too! Is he not surfeited with fame?”
Madame Guibert got up and said simply.
“I do not know, Madame. I thank you.”
She thanked her enemy for having tormented her needlessly! Never had she felt so weak and so helpless. Madame Dulaurens, as she went to the door with her, felt sorry for her and, satisfied with her victory, overwhelmed her with congratulations on her health, on her children who had formed a little France out in Tonkin, on Paule who was so beautiful and distinguished, who did not come often enough to see Alice. She was going to keep her daughter, so she could afford to be generous. On the doorstep she seemed to be parting with her best friend with the best grace in the world. Behind her trotted M. Dulaurens, bowing like a little automaton.
Left alone again, Madame Guibert went down the long plane avenue. She breathed freely, as if she had just escaped a great danger. That woman had been unkind and hard to her. How instinctively she had known what would wound her pride and delicacy of feeling. How she had fastened upon her brother-in-law’s misfortune, which had made so great a demand upon Dr. Guibert’s strength of will and presence of mind and which had brought about the financial ruin of the family; upon the weariness of that colonial expedition, over which Marcel’s splendid health had triumphed. What a sinister interpretation she had put on these events which were her glory! And yet she herself had brought the olive-branch and had spoken gently. Life, her life of humble, daily devotion, had not taught her that maternal love contracts the heart more often than it widens it, otherwise she would have understood that it was this warped feeling which had made Madame Dulaurens defend in every way her threatened happiness, the happiness which she mistook in all good faith for that of her daughter.