Sarah remained mute.
“To-day another honorable gentleman asks you to marry him.”
Storm signals flashed from the girl’s eyes. “I will marry no one except God!” she declared. “I wish to return to the Convent!”
“To enter a convent,” put in Meyedieu, “one must have money, or else be a servant. You have not a sou!”
“I have the money my father left me!”
“No, you have not! You have only the interest until you are twenty-one. If, at that age, you have not married, the terms of your father’s will stipulate that you shall lose the principal.”
The Duc de Morny intervened.
“Do you think that you are right, dear, in thus going against the wishes of your mother?”
Sarah began to sob. “My mother is not married, yet she wants me to be a wife! My mother is a Jewess, and she does not want her daughter to become a nun!”
“Leave the room!” ordered Julie, angrily.