“What is the matter?” she said, turning pale.

“I am sorry to say,” replied Clameran, “that this young man has inherited all the pride and passions of his ancestors.  He is one of those natures who stop at nothing, who only find incitement in opposition; and I can think of no way of checking him in his mad career.”

“Merciful Heaven! what has he been doing?”

“Nothing especially censurable; that is, nothing irreparable, thus far; but I am afraid of the future.  He is unaware of the liberal allowance which you have placed in my hands for his benefit; and, although he thinks that I support him, there is not a single indulgence which he denies himself; he throws away money as if he were the son of a millionaire.”

Like all mothers, Mme. Fauvel attempted to excuse her son.

“Perhaps you are a little severe,” she said.  “Poor child, he has suffered so much!  He has undergone so many privations during his childhood, that this sudden happiness and wealth has turned his head; he seizes it as a starving man seizes a piece of bread.  Is it surprising that he should refuse to listen to reason until hungry nature shall have been gratified?  Ah, only have patience, and he will soon return to the path of sober duty.  He has too noble a heart to do anything really wrong.”

“He has suffered so much!” was Mme. Fauvel’s constant excuse for Raoul.  This was her invariable reply to M. de Clameran’s complaints of his nephew’s conduct.

And, having once commenced, he was now constant in his accusations against Raoul.

“Nothing restrains his extravagance and dissipation,” Louis would say in a mournful voice; “the instant a piece of folly enters his head, it is carried out, no matter at what cost.”

Mme. Fauvel saw no reason why her son should be thus harshly judged.

“You must remember,” she said in an aggrieved tone, “that from infancy he has been left to his own unguided impulses.  The unfortunate boy never had a mother to tend and counsel him.  You must remember, too, that he has never known a father’s guidance.”

“There is some excuse for him, to be sure; but nevertheless he must change his present course.  Could you not speak seriously to him, madame?  You have more influence over him than I.”

She promised, but forgot her good resolution when with Raoul.  She had so little time to devote to him, that it seemed cruel to spend it in reprimands.  Sometimes she would hurry from home for the purpose of following the marquis’s advice; but, the instant she saw Raoul, her courage failed; a pleading look from his soft, dark eyes silenced the rebuke upon her lips; the sound of his voice banished every anxious thought, and lulled her mind to the present happiness.

But Clameran was not a man to lose sight of the main object, in what he considered a sentimental wasting of time.  He would have no compromise of duty.