"Let us see what he says," he suggested anxiously. But his mother did not heed him. She stood balancing the package in her hand.
"Can you tell us, then, nothing of Monsieur le Marquis?"
"Nothing more than I have told you, madame."
She bade Marius call Fortunio, and then dismissed the courier, bidding her captain see to his refreshment.
Then, alone at last with her son, she hastily tore the covering from the letter, unfolded it and read. And Marius, moved by anxiety, came to stand beside and just behind her, where he too might read. The letter ran:
"MY VERY DEAR MARQUISE,—I do not doubt but that it will pleasure you to hear that I am on my way home, and that but for a touch of fever that has detained us here at La Rochette, I should be at Condillac as soon as the messenger who is the bearer of these presents. A courier from Paris found me a fortnight since in Milan, with letters setting forth that my father had been dead six months, and that it was considered expedient at Court that I should return home forthwith to assume the administration of Condillac. I am lost in wonder that a communication of this nature should have been addressed to me from Paris instead of from you, as surely it must have been your duty to advise me of my father's decease at the time of that untoward event. I am cast down by grief at this evil news, and the summons from Court has brought me in all haste from Milan. The lack of news from Condillac has been for months a matter of surprise to me. My father's death may be some explanation of this, but scarcely explanation enough. However, madame, I count upon it that you will be able to dispel such doubts as I am fostering. I count too, upon being at Condillac by the end of week, but I beg that neither you nor my dear Marius will allow this circumstance to make any difference to yourselves, just as, although I am returning to assume the government of Condillac as the Court has suggested to me, I hope that yourself and my dear brother will continue to make it your home for as long as it shall pleasure you. So long shall it pleasure me.
"I am, my dear marquise, your very humble and very affectionate servant and stepson,
"FLORIMOND"
When she had read to the end, the Dowager turned back and read aloud the passage: "However, madame, I count upon it that you will be able to dispel such doubts as I am fostering." She looked at her son, who had shifted his position, so that he was now confronting her.
"He has his suspicions that all is not as it should be," sneered Marius.
"Yet his tone is amiable throughout. It cannot be that they said too much in that letter from Paris." A little trill of bitter laughter escaped her. "We are to continue to make this our home for as long as it shall pleasure us. So long shall it pleasure him!"
Then, with a sudden seriousness, she folded the letter and, putting her hands behind her, looked up into her son's face.
"Well?" she asked. "What are you going to do?"
"Strange that he makes no mention of Valerie" said Marius pensively.
"Pooh! A Condillac thinks lightly of his women. What are you going to do?"
His handsome countenance, so marvellously like her own, was overcast. He looked gloomily at his mother for a moment; then with a slight twitch of the shoulders he turned and moved past her slowly in the direction of the hearth. He leaned his elbow on the overmantel and rested his brow against his clenched right hand, and stood so awhile in moody thought. She watched him, a frown between her arrogant eyes.
"Aye, ponder it," said she. "He is at La Rochette, within a day's ride, and only detained there by a touch of fever. In any case he promises to be here by the end of the week. By Saturday, then, Condillac will have passed out of our power; it will be lost to you irretrievably. Will you lose La Vauvraye as well?"
He let his hand fall to his side, and turned, fully to face her.
"What can I do? What can we do?" he asked, a shade of petulance in his question.
She stepped close up to him and rested her hand lightly upon his shoulder.
"You have had three months in which to woo that girl, and you have tarried sadly over it, Marius. You have now at most three days in which to accomplish it. What will you do?"
"I have been maladroit perhaps," he said, with bitterness. "I have been over-patient with her. I have counted too much upon the chance of Florimond's being dead, as seemed from the utter lack of news of him. Yet what could I do? Carry her off by force and compel at the dagger's point some priest to marry us?"
She moved her hand from his shoulder and smiled, as if she derided him and his heat.
"You want for invention, Marius," said she. "And yet I beg that you will exert your mind, or Sunday next shall find us well-nigh homeless. I'll take no charity from the Marquis de Condillac, nor, I think, will you."
"If all fails," said he, "we have still your house in Touraine."
"My house?" she echoed, her voice shrill with scorn. "My hovel, you would say. Could you abide there—in such a sty?"
"Vertudieu! If all else failed, we might be glad of it."
"Glad of it? Not I, for one. Yet all else will fail unless you bestir yourself in the next three days. Condillac is as good as lost to you already, since Florimond is upon the threshold. La Vauvraye most certainly will be lost to you as well unless you make haste to snatch it in the little moment that is left you."
"Can I achieve the impossible, madame?" he cried, and his impatience waxed beneath this unreasonable insistence of his mother's.
"Who asks it of you?"
"Do not you, madame?"
"I? Pish! All that I urge is that you take Valerie across the border into Savoy where you can find a priest to marry you, and get it done this side of Saturday."
"And is not that the impossible? She will not go with me, as you well know, madame."
There was a moment's silence. The Dowager shot him a glance; then her eyes fell. Her bosom stirred as if some strange excitement moved her. Fear and shame were her emotions; for a way she knew by which mademoiselle might be induced to go with him—not only willingly, but eagerly, she thought—to the altar. But she was his mother, and even her harsh nature shuddered before the task of instructing him in this vile thing. Why had the fool not wit enough to see it for himself?
Observing her silence Marius smiled sardonically.
"You may well ponder it," said he. "It is an easy matter to tell me what I should do. Tell me, rather, how it should be done."
His blindness stirred her anger, and her anger whelmed her hesitation.
"Were I in your place, Marius, I should find a way," said she, in a voice utterly expressionless, her eyes averted ever from his own.
He scanned her curiously. Her agitation was plain to him, and it puzzled him, as did the downcast glance of eyes usually so bold and insolent in their gaze. Then he pondered her tone, so laden with expression by its very expressionlessness, and suddenly a flood of light broke upon his mind, revealing very clearly and hideously her meaning. He caught his breath with a sudden gasp and blenched a little. Then his lips tightened suddenly.
"In that case, madame," he said, after a pause, and speaking as if he were still without revelation of her meaning, "I can but regret that you are not in my place. For, as it is, I am thinking we shall have to make the best of the hovel in Touraine."
She bit her lip in the intensity of her chagrin and shame. She was no fool, nor did she imagine from his words that her meaning had been lost upon him. She knew that he had understood, and that he chose to pretend that he had not. She looked up suddenly, her dark eyes blazing, a splash of colour in either cheek.
"Fool!" she snapped at him; "you lily-livered fool! Are you indeed my son? Are you—by God!—that you talk so lightly of yielding?" She advanced a step in his direction. "Through your cowardice you may be content to spend your days in beggary; not so am I; nor shall I be, so long as I have an arm and a voice. You may go hence if your courage fails you outright; but I'll throw up the bridge and entrench myself within these walls. Florimond de Condillac sets no foot in here while I live; and if he should come within range of musket-shot, it will be the worse for him."