She told Violet that since she had become Mr. Castello’s wife it would be wiser to accept the situation.
“Even if you escaped you would have nowhere to go, for your grandfather would only return you to your husband if you went there,” she said.
“I should not return to that cruel old man and my treacherous cousin, Amber. I should seek out my dead father’s people and throw myself on their protection. They would help me to break this unholy marriage,” cried Violet, desperately.
“That you might marry Monsieur Grant, the poor man; is it not so?” queried the Frenchwoman, with a contemptuous emphasis on the epithet “poor man.”
“Yes, that I might marry my darling Cecil,” Violet answered, proudly.
The woman gave a derisive laugh and said, curtly:
“You are a silly girl to wish to exchange a rich husband for a poor one. No girl in her senses would do that, Mrs. Castello. Beauty like yours, madame, so fine and rare, should be beautifully arrayed. That beautiful form was made to be draped in rich attire; that ivory-white neck, those finely molded wrists to be encircled in pearls and diamonds, such as Monsieur Castello can give you. It were a shame that a beauty like you should wed a poor man. Oh, think, miladi, you would have to wear common calico and cook your own food; your lovely little white hands would be soiled with dish-washing and sweeping, and soon you would grow to hate the man who had sunk you into poverty! Perhaps there would be little children clinging round your knees, and you would have to toil for them, perhaps take in sewing or washing to buy bread for them, and——”
“Hush! No more; I will not listen!” Violet cried, indignantly; then her voice sank to a pleading cadence as she added:
“Once more, Suzanne, will you pity me? Will you help me to escape?”
“Certainly not, madame,” the woman replied, bluntly, taking up the rejected tray of food to leave the room.