The baroness heard midnight strike, with tears; her mind conceived of many horrors during the next hour, for the clock struck one, and Calyste was still not at home.

“Will he stay there?” she thought.  “It would be the first time.  Poor child!”

At that moment Calyste’s step resounded in the lane.  The poor mother, in whose heart rejoicing drove out anxiety, flew from the house to the gate and opened it for her boy.

“Oh!” cried Calyste, in a grieved voice, “my darling mother, why did you sit up for me?  I have a pass-key and the tinder-box.”

“You know very well, my child, that I cannot sleep when you are out,” she said, kissing him.

When the baroness reached the salon, she looked at her son to discover, if possible, from the expression of his face the events of the evening.  But he caused her, as usual, an emotion that frequency never weakened,—­an emotion which all loving mothers feel at sight of a human masterpiece made by them; this sentiment blues their sight and supersedes all others for the moment.

Except for the black eyes, full of energy and the heat of the sun, which he derived from his father, Calyste in other respects resembled his mother; he had her beautiful golden hair, her lovable mouth, the same curving fingers, the same soft, delicate, and purely white skin.  Though slightly resembling a girl disguised as a man, his physical strength was Herculean.  His muscles had the suppleness and vigor of steel springs, and the singularity of his black eyes and fair complexion was by no means without charm.  His beard had not yet sprouted; this delay, it is said, is a promise of longevity.  The chevalier was dressed in a short coat of black velvet like that of his mother’s gown, trimmed with silver buttons, a blue foulard necktie, trousers of gray jean, and a becoming pair of gaiters.  His white brow bore the signs of great fatigue, caused, to an observer’s eye, by the weight of painful thoughts; but his mother, incapable of supposing that troubles could wring his heart, attributed his evident weariness to passing excitement.  Calyste was as handsome as a Greek god, and handsome without conceit; in the first place, he had his mother’s beauty constantly before him, and next, he cared very little for personal advantages which he found useless.

“Those beautiful pure cheeks,” thought his mother, “where the rich young blood is flowing, belong to another woman! she is the mistress of that innocent brow!  Ah! passion will lead to many evils; it will tarnish the look of those eyes, moist as the eyes of an infant!”

This bitter thought wrung Fanny’s heart and destroyed her pleasure.

It may seem strange to those who calculate expenses that in a family of six persons compelled to live on three thousand francs a year the son should have a coat and the mother a gown of velvet; but Fanny O’Brien had aunts and rich relations in London who recalled themselves to her remembrance by many presents.  Several of her sisters, married to great wealth, took enough interest in Calyste to wish to find him an heiress, knowing that he, like Fanny their exiled favorite, was noble and handsome.