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It turned out, actually enough, that the wedding was to come off on a certain Wednesday in September. "Would you like New York and a bishop and a big church better than the old red house and the Charlesport minister?" Aleck anxiously asked of Mélanie. "Oh, no," she protested; and Aleck knew she was sincere. So they prepared to terminate their holidays by celebrating the wedding in the pine grove.
"For Heaven's sake stop!" said Gaston, losing all control of his temper. Then reflecting that this very energy in defending her might compromise Madeleine, he said, more calmly, "I beg your lordship to pause before you insult Mademoiselle Melanie. I know something of her history. She bears an unblemished name; she has a highly sensitive, a most delicate and refined nature.
Desiderius could not comprehend what madness had come over his brother, that he wished to bring him and Melanie together into such a false position. Perhaps it would be good to start the matter at once and interrupt the conversation.
Let Mademoiselle Melanie know that I particularly wish to have an interview with her. I must see her about that unfinished dress which certainly shall not go to New Orleans." She courtesied once more very profoundly to Mrs. Gilmer and departed, quite forgetting Lord Linden, who was well pleased not to be missed.
My cousin Melanie executed opera selections, and a French quadrille which excited my extremest admiration. My beautiful aunt laid stress upon the fact that she had only studied two years. A very intricate plan began to develop within me. Melanie played the piano, I the violin.
"You ask me, do you not, whether I have not some even more awful secret?" Lorand tacitly answered in the affirmative. Melanie drew the ring off her finger and held it up in her hand. "It is true but it is for me no longer a living secret. I am already dead to the person to whom this secret once bound me. When he asked my hand, I was still rich, my father was a man of powerful influence.
Do you not observe that she has only allowed herself to be called by her middle name, and that every one speaks of her as Mademoiselle Melanie?" Bertha, as she spoke, bent caressingly over her aunt, and took her hand. But the attempt to soften the infuriated aristocrat was futile. The countess replied, with increasing wrath, "I tell you she has humiliated herself and us to the last degree!
"With pleasure: please sit down. I am very glad to see you," said Sárvölgyi, in a husky tone, as if some invisible hand were choking his throat. "Desiderius has grown a big boy, has he not?" said Lorand, taking a seat between Madame Bálnokházy and Melanie, while Desiderius sat opposite Sárvölgyi, who could not take his eyes off the lad. "Big and handsome," affirmed Madame Bálnokházy.
The village priest was very fond of Bernadette and often spoke of her to the schoolmaster, saying that he could never look at her without thinking of the children of La Salette, since they must have been good, candid, and pious as she was, for the Blessed Virgin to have appeared to them.* On another occasion whilst the two men were walking one morning near the village, and saw Bernadette disappear with her little flock under some spreading trees in the distance, the Abbe repeatedly turned round to look for her, and again remarked "I cannot account for it, but every time I meet that child it seems to me as if I saw Melanie, the young shepherdess, little Maximin's companion."
I felt that it degraded me in her eyes. I could not discover what to do with that dollar. I scarce dared to look at Melanie when he departed; still I remarked that she did not look at me either when I left. At the door Lorand seized my hand. "Desi," said he severely, "that thing that the P. C. thrust into your hand you must give to the butler, when he opens the carriage door." I liked the idea.