"I think that it is mine as well.

Mother, bethink you," and his tone changed to an imploring key, "bethink you what you would do! Would you--you--mate with such a thing as that ?" His emphasis of the pronoun was very eloquent.

Not in all the words of the French language could he have told her better how high he placed her in his thoughts, how utterly she must fall, how unutterably be soiled by an alliance with Tressan.
"I had hoped you would have saved me from it, Marius," she answered him, her eyes seeming to gaze down into the depths of his.

"At La Vauvraye I had hoped to live out my widowhood in tranquil dignity.

But--" She let her arms fall sharply to her sides, and uttered a little sneering laugh.
"But, mother," he cried, "between the dignity of La Vauvraye and the indignity of Tressan, surely there is some middle course ?" "Aye," she answered scornfully, "starvation on a dunghill in Touraine--or something near akin to it, for which I have no stomach." He released her wrist and stood with bent head, clenching and unclenching his long white hands, and she watched him, watching in him the working of his proud and stubborn spirit.
"Mother," he cried at last, and the word sounded absurd between them, by so little did he seem the younger of the twain, "mother, you shall not do it you must not!" "You leave me little alternative--alas!" sighed she.