He nodded.
‘Of course it is! And you know it!’ mademoiselle hissed in my ear, her voice, as she interposed, hoarse with passion. ‘Don’t think that you can deceive us any longer. We know all! This,’ she continued, looking round, her cheeks scarlet, her eyes ablaze with scorn, ‘is your mother’s, is it! Your mother who has followed the court hither—whose means are narrow, but not so small as to deprive her of the privileges of her rank! This is your mother’s hospitality, is it? You are a cheat, sir! and a detected cheat! Let us begone! Let me go, sir, I say!’
Twice I had tried to stop the current of her words; but in vain. Now with anger which surpassed hers a hundredfold—for who, being a man, would hear himself misnamed before his mother?—I succeeded, ‘Silence, mademoiselle!’ I cried, my grasp on her wrist. ‘Silence, I say! This is my mother!’
And running forward to the bed, I fell on my knees beside it. A feeble hand had half withdrawn the curtain, and through the gap my mother’s stricken face looked out, a great fear stamped upon it.
CHAPTER VII. SIMON FLEIX
For some minutes I forgot mademoiselle in paying those assiduous attentions to my mother which her state and my duty demanded; and which I offered the more anxiously that I recognised, with a sinking heart, the changes which age and illness had made in her since my last visit. The shock of mademoiselle’s words had thrown her into a syncope, from which she did not recover for some time; and then rather through the assistance of our strange guide, who seemed well aware what to do, than through my efforts. Anxious as I was to learn what had reduced her to such straits and such a place, this was not the time to satisfy my curiosity, and I prepared myself instead for the task of effacing the painful impression which mademoiselle’s words had made on her mind.
On first coming to herself she did not remember them, but, content to find me by her side—for there is something so alchemic in a mother’s love that I doubt not my presence changed her garret to a palace—she spent herself in feeble caresses and broken words. Presently, however, her eye falling on mademoiselle and her maid, who remained standing by the hearth, looking darkly at us from time to time, she recalled, first the shock which had prostrated her, and then its cause, and raising herself on her elbow, looked about her wildly. ‘Gaston!’ she cried, clutching my hand with her thin fingers, ‘what was it I heard? It was of you someone spoke—a woman! She called you—or did I dream it?—a cheat! You!’
‘Madame, madame,’ I said, striving to speak carelessly, though the sight; of her grey hair, straggling and dishevelled, moved me strangely, ‘was it; likely? Would anyone dare to use such expressions of me is your presence? You must indeed have dreamed it!’
The words, however, returning more and more vividly to her mind, she looked at me very pitifully, and in great agitation laid her arm on my neck, as though she would shelter me with the puny strength which just enabled her to rise in bed. ‘But someone,’ she muttered, her eyes on the strangers, ‘said it, Gaston? I heard it. What did it mean?’