When she dared to look, he was smiling. The relief and gratitude in her soul were so infinite that she wanted to kneel at his feet.
But when she sobbed out the story of her later struggles and told him how she was devoting her life to the child, his brow grew dark.
"That, of course, would have to be changed," he said.
"Changed?" she stammered.
"Obviously, best beloved. One must consider public opinion. These journeys to Maison-Verte are mad; they must cease. You have not been fair to yourself; and now, more than ever, you need to reflect that——"
"But," she broke in, frightened, "you don't understand. It is not a mere question of my going to Maison-Verte; he will not be there always—he will grow up, and his future will be my care. My responsibility goes on. Oh, I know—you need not tell me—that you have thoroughly the right to refuse, but—but I have no right to alter. Since I have seen that I could never hope to give back what I took, I have seen that he was my charge for life."
"Mon Dieu!" he said, "you exaggerate quixotically. To give back what you took? Remember what you have already done!"
"Counted in francs," she pleaded, "I have done very little. It has been difficult to do, that's all."
Presently, when he perceived that, on this one point, the little weak woman was inflexible, the man made a beautiful speech, declaring that she was worth more than the opinion of Ivry-St.-Hilaire, and of all France. He said that nothing mattered to him but their "divine love." He looked more heroic still, and his eyes were moist with the nobility of the sentiments that he was delivering.
But as he sat in the principal café of the town by and by, among the stacks of swords in the corners, and the elite of the military and civil circles, clearing their throats vociferously on to the floor, he knew that a few days hence he meant to deliver a second lie about the "supplications of his family and his duty as a son." Had her debt been paid, he would have held her absolved from yielding so much as another thought to the boy, and he could have afforded to pay the debt, but it did not even enter his mind to commit such a madness. Yet, in his fashion, he loved her. The "chivalry" of offering marriage to a woman without a dot had proved it.