“What! You dare! What would you say if I threatened to carry you
forcibly to Miss Brandon’s house?”
“I, should say, father, that that is the only way to make me go there.”
Her attitude was firm, though not defiant. She spoke in a calm, gentle
voice, but betrayed in every thing a resolution firmly formed, and not
to be shaken by any thing. The count seemed to be perfectly amazed at
this audacity shown by a girl who was usually so timid. He said,--
“Then you detest, you envy, this Miss Brandon?”
“I, father? Why should I? Great God! I only know that she cannot become
the Countess Ville-Handry,--she who has filled all Paris with evil
reports.”
“Who has told you so? No doubt, M. Champcey.”
“Everybody has told me, father.”
“So, because she has been slandered, the poor girl”--
“I am willing to think she is innocent; but the Countess Ville-Handry
must not be a slandered woman.”