Pride: One of the Seven Cardinal Sins

But Madame de Senneterre did not complete the sentence. She had fully intended to add an opprobrious epithet, but she burst into a shrill, almost frenzied, laugh instead.

A cold silence following this ebullition of rage, Madame de Senneterre placed a trembling hand on M. de Maillefort's arm, and said:

"My dear marquis, listen to me. If my unworthy son should come and stand there, – right before me, do you understand? – and say to me,'I will kill myself before your very eyes if you refuse your consent,' I should say, 'Kill yourself, then. I would rather see you dead than disgraced. I would rather your name should die out, than to see it perpetuated to your dishonour, mine, and that of your sisters.'"

Then seeing the marquis was about to protest, she added:

"M. de Maillefort, I am not in a passion, I am calm, and I am saying exactly what I mean. I am telling you exactly what I should do, and after the insulting demand of my son and his accomplice, it is no longer maternal love or even indifference I feel for him; it is contempt, it is hatred, yes, hatred, do you hear? Tell him so. All the affection I once felt for this scoundrel I shall now bestow upon my daughters."

"This woman would do what she says," thought the marquis, with a feeling of horror. "It is useless to insist further. Reason is no match for such blind obstinacy as this. This woman, as she says, would watch her son kill himself before her very eyes unmoved. This is a pride of race that amounts to the stupid ferocity of the brute. Poor Gerald! Poor Herminie!"

CHAPTER XXII

A FINAL VICTORY

After a moment's silence, during which Madame de Senneterre sat positively panting with rage at this odious revelation which she could not yet fully make up her mind to believe, viz., that her son wished to marry a music teacher who supported herself by her own exertions, M. de Maillefort said, coldly, and exactly as if the foregoing conversation had never taken place:

"Madame, what do you think of the nobility and illustriousness of the house of Haut-Martel?"

At first Madame de Senneterre gazed at the hunchback with evident surprise, then she said:

"Really, monsieur, this question is most extraordinary."

"And why, madame?"

"What, monsieur, you see me crushed under the blow that has just struck me, or, rather, that you have just dealt me, unintentionally, no doubt," she added, with bitter irony, "and then ask me without rhyme or reason what I think of the illustriousness of the house of Haut-Martel."

"My question is less extraordinary, as you do not seem to think there can be the slightest ameliorating circumstance in the blow that has just overtaken you. So once more I ask, what do you think of the house of Haut-Martel?"

"There is not an older or more illustrious family in France, you most know very well, as you are closely connected with it on your father's side."

"I am now the head of that house, madame."

"You?" exclaimed Madame de Senneterre.

And strange to say the lady's acerbity of manner gave place to a sort of envious deference for the new representative of this powerful family.

"But I thought that the Prince Duc de Haut-Martel, who has resided on his estates in Germany since that idiotic revolution of 1830 – "

"That Prince Duc de Haut-Martel is dead, madame, and as he had neither brothers nor children, and as I am his cousin-germain, I inherit his estates and title."

"Then this event must have occurred very recently."

"I received the first intimation of it through the Austrian ambassador, and last night I had an official confirmation of the fact."

"So you are now the Marquis de Maillefort, Prince Duc de Haut-Martel?" said Madame de Senneterre, with mingled admiration and envy.

"Precisely, and without troubling myself very much about it, as you see."

"But your position is magnificent," exclaimed this monomaniac, quite forgetting the son whose despair might end in suicide. "Why, you are now one of the greatest noblemen in France."

"Good Heavens! yes. My newly acquired dignities enable me to aspire to anything, do they not? And to think that only yesterday I was but a simple marquis! What a change to-day, is there not? Don't you find my hump a little smaller since you have heard that I am so great a nobleman?"

"One should no more sneer at rank than at religion, monsieur."

"Certainly not. There are plenty of other subjects for ridicule. But I forgot to tell you that the Prince Duc de Haut-Martel left me estates in Hungary which yield a yearly income of about fifty thousand crowns, free of all incumbrances."

"One hundred and fifty thousand francs! Why, though no one knows the exact amount of your fortune, you are supposed to be very rich already, monsieur," replied Madame de Senneterre, with a sort of jealous envy.

"I scarcely know the exact amount of my income, myself," said the hunchback, "for my tenants, poor souls! pay me only when they can do so without too great an effort; but even in the worst of times I can generally count upon at least sixty thousand francs a year, to say nothing of the fact – of course, this is little more than an empty honour – that the electors of the arrondissement in which my estates are located propose to do me the honour of making me their deputy, their former representative having recently died; so you see that wealth and honours are falling upon me thick as hail."

"Then you have an income of more than two hundred thousand francs, and are Prince Duc de Haut-Martel and – "

"Prospective deputy, besides. Don't forget that."

"Your position is certainly a very enviable one."

"Yes, and with my figure and appearance I can aspire to the most beautiful woman in the land, can I not? Say, what a pity it is that Mlle. de Beaumesnil is in love with a handsome young man! But for that, I might have married her myself."

A new thought suddenly occurred to Madame de Senneterre, and after a moment's reflection the avaricious creature, casting a keen glance at M. de Maillefort, said:

"I think I understand you, M. le marquis."

"Let me see if you do."

"The question you asked me just now as to what I thought of the house of Haut-Martel was intended to suggest a sort of compensation for the terrible disappointment my unworthy son has caused me."

"You are right, madame."

"And as you have unexpectedly become the head of an illustrious house, you do not want it to become extinct."

"There is some truth in that, also," replied the hunchback, not a little surprised at Madame de Senneterre's penetration, though he was far from suspecting the lady's real thought.

"Yes, I admit that I would not like the name to die out, madame," he added, after a slight pause.

"And as you know that only a carefully reared girl of noble birth would be capable of bearing this noble name as it should be borne, and of understanding the sacred obligations she would have to fulfil towards the man to whom she owed such a magnificent position, you are thinking of my eldest daughter, – and believe you can thus offer me an adequate compensation for the misery my son's insubordination has caused me."

"I! marry?" exclaimed the hunchback, even more revolted than surprised by Madame de Senneterre's heartless proposal.

But anxious to see how far the blindness, hardness of heart, and love of greed would carry this cruel parent, he responded with one of those half way refusals that seem to be made only in the hope of seeing them overcome.

"I think of such a marriage! Besides, even if I did, would there be any possibility of compassing it? Think of it, madame, at my age and deformed as I am, while your daughter Bertha is a charming girl of barely twenty. She would laugh in my face and she would do perfectly right."

"You are mistaken, monsieur," replied this incomparable parent, gravely. "In the first place, Mlle. de Senneterre has been reared in habits of respect and submission from which I feel sure she will never depart. Besides, she knows that she is poor, and that she would never be likely to attain another position to be compared with that you offer her."

"But again let me remind you that I am old and ugly and a hunchback besides."

"M. le marquis, my daughters have been brought up in such a way that they would not dare to so much as look at the husband I select for them until the marriage ceremony is over."