“First I went and looked up at the outside of the great Carmelite Convent in the Rue Vaugirard—the place where I was taken when I was eight years old, to say good-by to my mother before she went away.... Where she was going they would not tell me—nor, though I have always received a letter from her regularly twice a year, has there ever been any address or postmark upon it by which I might be guided to find out her whereabouts. But of course she is at Widinitz, in the Priory Convent there. And it seems to me that she did right in returning. In her place I should have done the same. He says I say so because I have Carmel in my blood!”
A faint pink flush forced its way to the surface of de Moulny’s thick sallow skin. He whispered, averting his eyes:
“You have spoken to him about...?”
“When he heard of our—difference of opinion, he naturally inquired its cause.”
Hector’s small square white teeth showed in a silent mocking laugh that was not good to see. “He thought I fought in defense of my father’s honor. He said so. He may say so again—but he will not think it now!”
The boyish face changed and hardened at the recollection of that interview. Terrible words must have been exchanged between the father and the son. De Moulny, cadet of a family whose strongest hereditary principle, next to piety towards the Church, was respect towards parents, shuddered under his wicker-basket and patchwork coverlet. There was a cautious tap at the black swing-doors leading out upon the tile-paved passage. They parted, Madame Gaubert appeared looking for the Sister, caught her mild eye as she glanced round from her work, beckoned with an urgent finger and the whole of her vivacious face.... The Sister rose, and the face vanished. As the doors closed behind the nun’s noiseless black draperies, Hector took up his tale:
“I said to him that the terms upon which he had permitted my mother to return to the bosom of the Church were infamous. He laughed at first at what he called my pompous manner and fine choice of words. He was very witty about the recovery of the dowry—called it ‘squeezing the Pope’s nose,’ ‘milking the black cow,’ and other things. All the while he pretended to laugh, but he gnashed his teeth through the laughter in that ugly way he has.”
“I know!” de Moulny nodded.
“Then he reproached me for unfilial ingratitude. He said it was to endow his only son with riches that he demanded return of the dowry—the surrender of the three-hundred-thousand silver thalers.... ‘You are a child now,’ he told me, ‘but when you are a man, when you need money for play, dress, amusements, pleasure, women, you will come to me hat in hand.’ I said: ‘Never in my life!...’ He told me: ‘Wait until you are a man!’”
Hector pondered and rubbed his ear. De Moulny cackled faintly: