“As holy missionaries: as good women should come. Do you intend leading such a life of self-sacrifice? Is that your purpose?” said Laval, penetrating her with his glance.
Her angelic beauty, drowned in red shame, could not move him. “Rash” and “forward” were the terms to be applied to her. She had no defense except the murmur:
“I thought of devoting myself to a holy life. Everybody was then willing to help me escape the marriage.”
“Were there, then, no convents in France able to bound your zeal? Did you feel pushed to make this perilous voyage and to take up the hard life of saintly women here?”
“You are deeply prejudiced against marriage?”
“I am myself a Laval-Montmorency,” said mademoiselle, rearing her neck in her last stronghold. “The Bishop of Petræa[1] may not have inherited all the heroism of the present generation.”
He smiled slowly; his mouth was not facile at relaxing.
“In your convent they failed to curb the tongue. This step that you have taken is, I fear, a very rash one, my daughter.”