"Madame," I stammered. "This is infamous!"
"What, Monsieur?" she answered, this time heeding me. "May I not punish my daughter in my own way?"
"Not before me," I retorted, full of wrath. "It is cruel! It is----"
"Oh, before you, M. le Vicomte?" Madame answered, mocking me. "And why not before you? I cannot degrade her lower than she has herself stooped!"
"It is false!" I cried, in hot rage. "It is a cruel falsehood!"
"Oh, I can? Then if I please, I shall!" Madame answered, with ruthless pleasantry. "And you, Monsieur, will sit by and listen, if I please. Though, make no mistake, M. le Vicomte," she continued, leaning forward, and gazing keenly into my face. "Because I punish her before you, do not think that you are, or ever shall be, of the family. Or that this unmaidenly, immodest----"
Mademoiselle uttered a cry of pain, and shrank lower in her corner.
"Little fool," Madame continued coolly, "who, when she was primed with a cock-and-bull story about the cockade, must needs add, 'I love him'--I love him, and she a maiden!--will ever be anything to you! That link was broken long ago. It was broken when your friends burned our house at St. Alais; it was broken when they sacked our house in Cahors; it was broken when they made our king a prisoner, when they murdered our friends, when they dragged our Church a slave at the chariot wheels of their triumph; ay, and broken once for all, beyond mending by mock heroics! Understand that fully, M. le Vicomte," Madame continued pitilessly. "But as you saw her stoop, you shall see her punished. She is the first St. Alais that ever wooed a lover!"
I knew that of the family which would have given the lie to that statement; but it was not a tale for Mademoiselle's ears, and instead I rose. "At least, Madame," I said, bowing, "I can free Mademoiselle from the embarrassment of my presence. And I shall do so."
"No, you will not do even that," Madame answered unmoved. "If you will sit down, I will tell you why."