With such a character, surrounded, however, by a meek resignation, and an unalterable sang-froid, she inspired a certain respect to both her mother and her brother, who admired in her an energy of which they felt themselves incapable.
And when she appeared, and commenced reproaching him in an indignant tone of voice, with the baseness of his conduct, and his insatiate demands, Maxence was almost stunned.
"I did not know," he commenced, turning as red as fire.
She crushed him with a look of mingled contempt and pity; and, in an accent of haughty irony:
"Indeed," she said, "you do not know whence the money comes that you extort from our mother!"
And holding up her hand, still remarkably handsome, though slightly deformed by the constant handling of the needle; the fourth finger of the right hand bent by the thread, and the fore-finger of the left tattooed and lacerated by the needle:
"Indeed," she repeated, "you do not know that my mother and myself, we spend all our days, and the greater part of our nights, working?"
Hanging his head, he said nothing.
"If it were for myself alone," she continued, "I would not speak to you thus. But look at our mother! See her poor eyes, red and weak from her ceaseless labor! If I have said nothing until now, it is because I did not as yet despair of your heart; because I hoped that you would recover some feeling of decency. But no, nothing. With time, your last scruples seem to have vanished. Once you begged humbly; now you demand rudely. How soon will you resort to blows?"
"Gilberte!" stammered the poor fellow, "Gilberte!"
She interrupted him:
"Money!' she went on, "always, and without time, you must have money; no matter whence it comes, nor what it costs. If, at least, you had to justify your expenses, the excuse of some great passion, or of some object, were it absurd, ardently pursued! But I defy you to confess upon what degrading pleasures you lavish our humble economies. I defy you to tell us what you mean to do with the sum that you demand to-night, - that sum for which you would have our mother stoop to beg the assistance of a shop-keeper, to whom we would be compelled to reveal the secret of our shame."
Touched by the frightful humiliation of her son:
"He is so unhappy!" stammered Mme. Favoral.
"He unhappy!" she exclaimed. "What, then, shall we say of us? and, above all, what shall you say of yourself, mother?
Unhappy! - he, a man, who has liberty and strength, who may undertake every thing, attempt any thing, dare any thing. Ah, I wish I were a man! I! I would be a man as there are some, as I know some; and I would have avenged you, 0 beloved mother! long, long ago, from father; and I would have begun to repay you all the good you have done me."
Mme. Favoral was sobbing.
"I beg of you," she murmured, "spare him."
"Be it so," said the young girl. "But you must allow me to tell him that it is not for his sake that I devote my youth to a mercenary labor. It is for you, adored mother, that you may have the joy to give him what he asks, since it is your only joy."
Maxence shuddered under the breath of that superb indignation. That frightful humiliation, he felt that he deserved it only too much.
He understood the justice of these cruel reproaches. And, as his heart had not yet spoiled with the contact of his boon companions, as he was weak, rather than wicked, as the sentiments which are the honor and pride of a man were not dead within him.
"Ah! you are a brave sister, Gilberte," he exclaimed; "and what you have just done is well. You have been harsh, but not as much as I deserve. Thanks for your courage, which will give me back mine.
Yes, it is a shame for me to have thus cowardly abused you both."
And, raising his mother's hand to his lips:
"Forgive, mother," he continued, his eyes overflowing with tears;
"forgive him who swears to you to redeem his past, and to become your support, instead of being a crushing burden -"
He was interrupted by the noise of steps on the stairs, and the shrill sound of a whistle.
"My husband!" exclaimed Mme. Favoral, - "your father, my children!"
"Well," said Mlle. Gilberte coldly.
"Don't you hear that he is whistling? and do you forget that it is a proof that he is furious? What new trial threatens us again?"
