"I saw him at Obernai for a long time. He pleases me very much, because he is proud, like me. He has promised me to protect you in the regiment. But do not let us speak of him at dinner. It will be better not to. Mamma has been very kind—the poor thing touched me. She can do no more. Jean, I was obliged to reassure her by telling her your secret, and I told her that you will not leave Alsace, because you love Odile. Will you forgive me?"
She took her brother's arm, and leaving the hall went into the dining-room, where M. and Madame Oberlé were seated already—silent.
"My poor dear, in this house every joy is paid for by the sorrow of others. Look! I alone am happy!"
The dinner was very short. M. Oberlé immediately after led his daughter into the billiard-room because he wanted to question her. The mother remained a moment at the table near her son, who was now her neighbour. As soon as she was alone with him, the constraint fell like a veil from her face. The mother turned towards her child, admired him, smiled at him, and said in the confidential tone she knew so well how to use:
"I can do no more, my dear. I am completely done up and must go to bed. But I will confess that amidst my suffering a while ago I had one joy. Imagine that till just then I believed most firmly that you were going to leave us."
Jean started.
"I do not believe it now; do not be afraid! I am reassured. Your sister has told me in secret that I shall have some day a little Alsatian for a daughter-in-law. That will do me so much good. I understand that you could not tell me anything yet, while so much has been happening. And then it is still new—isn't it? Why are you trembling like that? I tell you, Jean, that I ask nothing from you now, and that I have entirely lost my fears—I love you so much."
She also embraced Jean. She also pressed him to her breast. But she had no tenderness in her soul except that which she was expressing.
She remembered the child in the cradle, nights and days of long ago, anxieties, dreams, precautions, and prayers of which he had been the object, and she thought:
"All that is nothing compared with what I would always do for him!"