Big Renaud looked hot and uncomfortable. His
son pressed his hand so affectionately under the table
that the good man’s eyes grew wet.
“Ever since then, godfather, I have not cared
for you any more.”
The atmosphere of the little room seemed suddenly
to congeal. The silence was intense. Adhemar
himself remained thunderstruck in his chair, his tongue
dry, his thoughts chaotic, unable to form a reply to
the child’s virulent attack. For the sake
of breaking up this general paralysis, Maurice Renaud
finally suggested that they should vote upon the decision
to be given to his brave little cousin.
They gathered together around the table and began
to talk in low tones. Esperance had sunk into
a chair. Her face was very pale and great blue
circles had appeared around her eyes. The discussion
seemed to be once more in full swing when Maurice
startled everyone by crying, “My God, Esperance
is ill!”
The child had fainted, and her head hung limply back.
Her golden hair made an aureola of light around the
colourless face with its dead white lips.
Maurice raised the child in his arms, and Madame Darbois
led him quickly to Esperance’s little room where
he laid the light form on its little bed. Francois
Darbois moistened her temples quickly with Eau de
Cologne. Madame Darbois supported Esperance’s
head, holding a little ether to her nose. As
Maurice looked about the little room, as fresh, as
white, as the two pots of marguerites on the mantel-shelf,
an indefinable sentiment swelled up within him.
Was it a kind of adoration for so much purity?
Philippe Renaud had remained in the dining-room where
he succeeded in keeping Adhemar, in spite of his efforts
to follow the Darbois.
Esperance opened her eyes and seeing beside her only
her father and mother, those two beings whom she loved
so deeply, so tenderly, she reached out her arms and
drew close to her their beloved heads. Maurice
had slipped out very quietly. “Papa dearie,
Mama beloved, forgive me, it is not my fault,”
she sobbed.
“Don’t cry, my child, now, not a tear,”
cried Darbois, bending over his little girl.
“It is settled, you shall be....” and the
word was lost in her little ear.
She went suddenly pink, and raising herself towards
him, whispered her reply, “Oh! I thank
you! How I love you both! Thank you!
Thank you!”
Esperance, left alone with her mother, drank the tea
this tender parent brought to her, and the look of
health began to come back to her face.
“Then to-morrow, mother dearest, we must go
and be registered for the examinations that are soon
to be held at the Conservatoire.”
“You want to go to-morrow?”
“Yes, to-day we must stay with papa, mustn’t
we? He is so kind!”
The two—mother and daughter—were
silent a moment, occupied with the same tender thoughts.
