“No, no, it is not Patricia—it is no one—it is news from home; you know it already—you know it!” cried the girl. “My mother! She is poor; I have had to come away from her to be a governess; and you, alas, knew who she was, but said nothing of it to me!”
And involuntarily Desirée’s eyes sought, with a momentary indignant glance, the face of Oswald. He sat perfectly upright in his chair staring at her, growing red and white by turns; red with a fierce, selfish anger, white with a baffled, ungenerous shame, the ignominy, not of doing wrong, but of being found out. But even in that moment, in the mortifying consciousness that this little girl had discovered and despised him—the revenge, or rather, for it was smaller—the spite of a mean mind, relieved itself at least in the false wooer’s face. He turned to her with the bitterest sneer poor Desirée had ever seen. It seemed to say, “what cause but this could have induced me to notice you?” She did not care for him, but she thought she once had cared, and the sneer galled the poor little Frenchwoman to the heart.
“You are ungenerous—you!” she exclaimed, with a fiery vehemence and passion, “you delude me, and then you sneer. Shall I sneer at you, you sordid, you who wrong the widow? But no! If you had not known me I should have thanked you, and my mother would never, never have injured one who was good to Desirée; but now it is war, and I go. Farewell, Monsieur! you did not mean to be kind, but only to blind me—ah, I was wrong to speak of thanks—farewell!”
“What do you mean? who has deceived you?” cried Joanna, stepping forward and shaking Desirée somewhat roughly by the arm; “tell us all plain out what it is. I’m as sure as I can be that it’s him that’s wrong—and I think shame of Oswald to see him sit there, holding his tongue when he should speak; but you shanna look so at papa!”
And Joanna stood between Melmar and her excited little friend, thrusting the latter away, and yet holding her fast at arm’s length. Melmar put his arm on his daughter’s shoulder and set her quietly aside.
“Let us hear what this discovery is,” said Mr. Huntley; “who is your mother, mademoiselle?”
At which cool question Desirée blazed for an instant into a flush of fury, but immediately shrunk with a cool dread of having been wrong and foolish. Perhaps, after all, they did not know—perhaps it was she who was about to heighten the misfortune of their loss and ruin by ungenerous insinuations. Desirée paused and looked doubtfully in Melmar’s face. He was watching her with his usual stealthy vigilance, looking, as usual, heated and fiery, curving his bushy, grizzled eyebrows over those keen cat-like eyes. She gazed at him with a doubtful, almost imploring, look—was she injuring him?—had he not known?
“Come, mademoiselle,” said Melmar, gaining confidence as he saw the girl was a little daunted, “I have but a small acquaintance in your country. Who was your mother? It does not concern us much, so far as I can see, but still, let’s hear. Oswald, my lad, can’t you use your influence?—we are all waiting to hear.”
Oswald, however, had given up the whole business. He was pleased to be able to annoy his father and affront Desirée at last. Perhaps the rage and disappointment in his heart were in some sort a relief to him. He was at least free now to express his real sentiments. He got up hastily from his chair, thrust it aside so roughly that it fell, and with a suppressed but audible oath, left the room. Then Desirée stood alone, with Melmar watching her, with Patricia crying spitefully close at hand, and even Joanna, her own friend, menacing and unfriendly. The poor girl did not know where to turn or what to do.
“Perhaps I am wrong,” she said, with a momentary falter. “There was no reason, it is true, why you should know mamma. And perhaps it is unkind and ungenerous of me. But—ah, Joanna, you guessed it when I did not know!—you said she must have been here—you are honest and knew no harm! My mother was born at Melmar; it is hers, though she is poor—and she is coming home.”