“Our home is at Aix,” said the old Marquis, “and you are my eldest son. I, as you know, was never eager for you to go to Paris—but you had then—ambitions—and I acceded to them. Now I shall be glad to have you at home, and after a little while you also, Luc, will be glad to be with your own people.”
Through Luc’s brain ran the weary question, “If I had known it was for the last time, would it have made any difference? Yet I did know.”
Aloud he said—
“Mademoiselle must be free, my father. It was never in my mind that she believed herself bound.”
“But you have promised me that you will see her.”
“Yes,” answered Luc sadly. “Poor child!”
The Marquis hesitated, looked on the ground, then raised his head suddenly.
“Luc,” he said, “this alliance is an honour to M. de Séguy and to his daughter.”
The bowed young man turned his disfigured eyes on his father with another kind of pride.
“My God, look at me!” he said.