Michel shall be your only child as well as your only love. But the law and public morality will permit me to be his best friend, his guide, and the defender of his mother's honor and fair fame." The marquis delivered this long speech in a calm tone, the expression of his face corresponding to his manner. But a tear trembled on his eyelid, and he did wrong to try to hold it back, for it was more eloquent than his words. The princess blushed; it was the first time that the marquis had ever seen her blush, and he was so agitated that he lost all the self-possession with which he had armed himself. That blush which made her a true woman for the first time, at thirty-two years of age, was like a sunbeam on the snow, and Michel's artistic sensibilities were so keen that he realized at once that she had kept another secret in the depths of her heart, or else that her heart, revived by joy and a sense of security, was ripe for love. And what man was more worthy of her than the Marquis della Serra? The young prince knelt at her feet. "O mother," he said, "you are only twenty years old! See, look at yourself," he added, offering her a hand mirror which her maid had left on the table. "You are so beautiful and so young, and you propose to renounce love! Is it for my sake? Shall I be the happier because your life is less complete and less happy? Shall I respect you less because I see that you are more profoundly respected and more effectively protected? Are you afraid that I am jealous, as Mila accused me of being? No, I shall not be jealous unless I find that he loves you better than I do, and I defy him to do that! Dear marquis, we will love her dearly, will we not, and make her forget the past; we will make her happy, who has never been happy, and who, alone of all human beings, deserves absolute happiness! Say yes, mother; I will not stand up until you have said yes!" "I have already reflected," said Agatha, blushing afresh. "I think that I must do it for your sake, and for the dignity of us all." "Do not say so," cried Michel, throwing his arms about her; "say that it is for your happiness, if you wish us two to be happy!" Agatha held out her hand to the marquis and hid her son's face against her breast. She was ashamed to have him see her fiancé's joy. She had retained the modesty of a girl; and from that day, she was so fresh and so lovely that the evil tongues, who insist upon detecting falsehood and crime everywhere, declared that Michel was not her son, but a lover installed in her house under that profaned title. However, all calumny and ridicule vanished before the announcement of her marriage to Signor della Serra, which was to take place at the end of her mourning. There was an occasional sneer at the marquis's Quixotic love, but he was envied much more than he was pitied. XLIX DANGER