he wished to kill it in himself.
This romantic history ended by giving him great anxiety. Could it be
true that a poor girl--a child without a name, a little embroiderer,
first seen under a pale ray of moonlight, had been transfigured into a
delicate Virgin of the Legends, and adored with a fervent love as if in
a dream? At each new acknowledgment he thought his anger was increased,
as his heart beat with such an inordinate emotion, and he redoubled his
attempts at self-control, knowing not what cry might come to his lips.
He had finished by replying with a single word, "Never!" Then Felicien
threw himself on his knees before him, implored him, and pleaded his
cause as well as that of Angelique, in the trembling of respect and of
terror with which the sight of his father always filled him. Until then
he had approached him only with fear. He besought him not to oppose
his happiness, without even daring to lift his eyes towards his saintly
personage. With a submissive voice he offered to go away, no matter
where; to leave all his great fortune to the Church, and to take his
wife so far from there that they would never be seen again. He only
wished to love and to be loved, unknown. Monseigneur shook from
trembling as he repeated severely the word, "Never!" He had pledged
himself to the Voincourts, and he would never break his engagement
with them. Then Felicien, quite discouraged, realising that he was very
angry, went away, fearing lest the rush of blood, which empurpled his
cheeks, might make him commit the sacrilege of an open revolt against
paternal authority.

"My child," concluded Hubertine, "you can easily understand that you
must no longer think of this young man, for you certainly would not
wish to act in opposition to the wishes of Monseigneur. I knew that
beforehand, but I preferred that the facts should speak for themselves,
and that no obstacle should appear to come from me."

Angelique had listened to all this calmly, with her hands listlessly
clasped in her lap. Scarcely had she even dropped her eyelids from
time to time, as with fixed looks she saw the scene so vividly
described--Felicien at the feet of Monseigneur, speaking of her in an
overflow of tenderness. She did not answer immediately, but continued to
think seriously, in the dead quiet of the kitchen, where even the little
bubbling sound of the water in the boiler was no longer heard. She
lowered her eyes and looked as her hands, which, under the l