XXXVII
THE CONCIERGE-NURSE
In a hasty, violent, nervous disposition, wrath is quick to come; it bursts out violently, but it does not last long; the heart that feels the most profoundly the wounds that it receives, is also the most sensitive to the tears that it sees shed, and it very speedily repents of the pain it has inflicted.
The Comte de Brévanne, who had only a few hours before acquired the certainty that his wife had had a child by Roncherolle, had been unable to control his wrath and his jealousy when their child appeared before him; at the first blush, he had imagined that it was a fresh insult, an additional affront purposely put upon him. All his sufferings, all his anguish had returned to his mind and to his heart, and we have seen how, as a result of all these circumstances, he had received poor Violette.
But when a half hour had passed after the young girl's departure, the count, who had remained alone in his study, had had time to grow calm; moreover, the storm that was in the air had broken, the rain was falling in torrents; at such times nervous people always feel relieved, they breathe more freely, their brain becomes clearer and their irritation falls with the rain.
Brévanne looked about him, passed his hand over his forehead, and said to himself:
"So that girl has gone. How I treated her! why, I must have lost my reason. She came here to ask me for help, for protection, and I brutally sent her away, drove her out of doors. Poor child! is it her fault that she is the fruit of adultery? She does not know who her mother is, as she came to ask me for information concerning her parents. They shamelessly abandoned her, and I turn her out of doors! Can it be that I propose to be as shameless as they? Ah! I behaved very badly. And this storm—great heavens! the rain is falling in sheets. Can she have gone away in such weather?"
The count rang violently and Pongo quickly answered.
"Master, he ring?"
"Yes; that young girl from Paris who came just now to speak to me—where is she? Go and find her, and bring her back; I don't want her to go away."
"Yes, master."