"I do not like it, and I dislike needless mysteries. From a worldly point of view,—and I at least, who have drunk deep of poverty, must somewhat think for thee. Here are two people without competent means—"
"But I love him."
"And his mother?"
"But I love him." She had no other logic. "Oh, I wish Mr. Schmidt were here! René says he will like it."
"That, at least, is a good thing." Both were silent a little while. Mrs. Swanwick had been long used to defer to the German's opinions, but looking far past love's limited horizon, the widow thought of the certain anger of the mother, of the trap she in her pride would think set for her son by designing people, her prejudices intensified by the mere fact of the poverty which left her nothing but exaggerated estimates of her son and what he was entitled to demand of the woman he should some day marry. And too, René had often spoken of a return to France. She said at last: "We will leave the matter now, and speak of it to no one; but I should say to thee, my dear, that apart from what for thy sake I should consider, and the one sad thing of his willingness to avenge a hasty word by possibly killing a fellow-man,—how terrible!—apart from these things, there is no one I had been more willing to give thee to than René de Courval."
"Thank thee, mother." The evil hour when the vicomtesse must hear was at least remote, and something akin to anger rose in the widow's mind as she thought of it.
René came in to supper. Mrs. Swanwick was as usual quiet, asking questions in regard to Margaret's errand of charity, but of a mind to win time for reflection, and unwilling as yet to open the subject with René.
When, late in the evening, he came out of the study where he had been busy with the instructions left by Schmidt, he was annoyed to learn that Margaret had gone up-stairs. There was still before him the task of speaking to his mother of what he was sure was often in her mind, Carteaux. She had learned from the gossip of guests that a Frenchman had been set upon near Bristol and had been robbed and wounded. Incurious and self-centered, the affairs of the outer world had for her but little real interest. Now she must have her mind set at ease, for René well knew that she had not expected him to rest contented or to be satisfied with the result of his unfortunate duel. Her puritan creed was powerless here as against her social training, and her sense of what so hideous a wrong as her husband's murder should exact from his son.
"I have something to tell you, maman," he said; "and before I go, it is well that I should tell you."
"Well, what is it?" she said coldly, and then, as before, uneasily anxious.