“Ah! It is a mésalliance, then!”
The fact was startling certainly, but less so than it might have been, owing to certain rumors that prepared the public to believe in any extravagance coupled with Edgar de Chassedot’s name.
“Oh! mon Dieu, non! A thousand times no!” cried his mother with quick resentment. “Edgar a fait des bêtises, but he is incapable of dishonoring himself. Oh, no! The girl is of an excellent family, she is even our own cousin.”
“It is her principles, then, or her—character that you object to?” said Berthe with some hesitation.
“O dear! no. She is as pious as a seraph, and brought up like a lily!” exclaimed the marquise.
“Is she a hunch-back, then, or lame, or blind, or what?”
“She is a beggar! A beggar who has not a sou to buy her own trousseau. It is a beggar who has stolen the heart of my son!” And tears of bitter, disappointed motherhood flowed down the cheeks of the marquise.
“And her name is—?”
“Mademoiselle de Karodel!”
“What! Hélène? Hélène de Karodel, that brave, true, gentle creature is going to be your son’s wife! And you in tears, and not of joy! And you call her a beggar! A woman whose love, since your son has been lucky enough to win it—and Hélène is not a girl to marry him if he had not—would be a prize for a prince! And you, a Christian mother, weep over it, and expect to be pitied! Really, madame, if it were not laughable, it would be deplorable, not on your son’s account, but on your own!”