“The truth; and the servants will confirm it to you—for I feel that my revelations are scarcely believable.”
“But it is impossible! impossible!” said the poor child, whose agitation increased with every word of the adroit Provencal. “I cannot be the cause of such dreadful harm.”
“That is, you did not intend to be, for the harm is done; and I pray Heaven it may not be irremediable.”
“But what am I to do, good God!” cried Celeste, wringing her hands.
“I should answer, without hesitation, sacrifice yourself, mademoiselle, if it were not that I should then be forced to play the painful part of victimizer.”
“Monsieur,” said Celeste, “you interpret ill the resistance that I have made, though, in fact, I have scarcely expressed it. I have certainly had a preference, but I have never considered myself in the light of a victim; and whatever it is necessary to do to restore peace in this house to which I have brought trouble, I shall do it without repugnance, and even willingly.”
“That would be for me,” said la Peyrade, humbly, “more than I could dare ask for myself; but, for the result which we both seek, I must tell you frankly that something more is needed. Madame Thuillier has not changed her nature to instantly change back again on the mere assurance by others of your compliance. It is necessary that she should hear from your own lips that you accede to my suit, and that you do so with eagerness,—assumed, indeed, but sufficiently well assumed to induce her to believe in it.”
“So be it,” said Celeste. “I shall know how to seem smiling and happy. My godmother, monsieur, has been a mother to me; and for such a mother, what is there that I would not endure?”
The position was such, and Celeste betrayed so artlessly the depth and, at the same time, the absolute determination of her sacrifice, that with any heart at all la Peyrade would have loathed the part he was playing; but Celeste, to him, was a means of ascent, and provided the ladder can hold you and hoist you, who would ever ask if it cared to or not? It was therefore decided that Celeste should go to her godmother and convince her of the mistake she had made in supposing an objection to la Peyrade which Celeste had never intended to make. Madame Thuillier’s opposition overcome, all was once more easy. La Peyrade took upon himself the duty of making peace between the two sisters-in-law, and we can well imagine that he was not at a loss for fine phrases with which to assure the artless girl of the devotion and love which would take from her all regret for the moral compulsion she had now undergone.
When Celeste went to her godmother she found her by no means as difficult to convince as she had expected. To go to the point of rebellion which Madame Thuillier had actually reached, the poor woman, who was acting against her instincts and against her nature, had needed a tension of will that, in her, was almost superhuman. No sooner had she received the false confidences of her goddaughter than the reaction set in; the strength failed her to continue in the path she had taken. She was therefore easily the dupe of the comedy which Celeste’s tender heart was made to play for la Peyrade’s benefit.