In fact, so long as her son's father-in-law
was insolent and offensive, she had found the strength in her
resistance to the aggressive tradesman; but the sort of good-nature he
showed, in spite of his exasperation as a mortified adorer and as a
humiliated National Guardsman, broke down her nerve, strung to the
point of snapping. She wrung her hands, melted into tears, and was in
a state of such helpless dejection, that she allowed Crevel to kneel
at her feet, kissing her hands.
"Good God! what will become of us!" she went on, wiping away her
tears. "Can a mother sit still and see her child pine away before her
eyes? What is to be the fate of that splendid creature, as strong in
her pure life under her mother's care as she is by every gift of
nature? There are days when she wanders round the garden, out of
spirits without knowing why; I find her with tears in her eyes----"
"She is one-and-twenty," said Crevel.
"Must I place her in a convent?" asked the Baroness. "But in such
cases religion is impotent to subdue nature, and the most piously
trained girls lose their head!--Get up, pray, monsieur; do you not
understand that everything is final between us? that I look upon you
with horror? that you have crushed a mother's last hopes----"
"But if I were to restore them," asked he.
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