It's an outrage, and I insist upon saving
you from the extravagance of your own generosity. Would you chop off
your hand if your mother requested it?"
Madame de Cintre looked a little frightened. "I spoke of my mother
too blindly, the other day. I am my own mistress, by law and by her
approval. She can do nothing to me; she has done nothing. She has never
alluded to those hard words I used about her."
"She has made you feel them, I'll promise you!" said Newman.
"It's my conscience that makes me feel them."
"Your conscience seems to me to be rather mixed!" exclaimed Newman,
passionately.
"It has been in great trouble, but now it is very clear," said Madame
de Cintre. "I don't give you up for any worldly advantage or for any
worldly happiness."
"Oh, you don't give me up for Lord Deepmere, I know," said Newman. "I
won't pretend, even to provoke you, that I think that. But that's what
your mother and your brother wanted, and your mother, at that villainous
ball of hers--I liked it at the time, but the very thought of it now
makes me rabid--tried to push him on to make up to you."
"Who told you this?" said Madame de Cintre softly.
"Not Valentin. I observed it. I guessed it. I didn't know at the time
that I was observing it, but it stuck in my memory. And afterwards, you
recollect, I saw Lord Deepmere with you in the conservatory.
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