to change my love for you to admiration. I am not unhappy while I possess my son!”
“Ah, just so,” said Albert; “here begins the trial. Do you know the decision we have come to, mother?”
“Have we come to any?”
“Yes; it is decided that you are to live at Marseilles, and that I am to leave for Africa, where I will earn for myself the right to use the name I now bear, instead of the one I have thrown aside.”
Mercédès sighed. “Well, mother, I yesterday engaged myself as substitute in the Spahis,” added the young man, lowering his eyes with a certain feeling of shame, for even he was unconscious of the sublimity of his self-abasement. “I thought my body was my own, and that I might sell it. I yesterday took the place of another. I sold myself for more than I thought I was worth,” he added, attempting to smile; “I fetched 2,000 francs.”
“Then these 1,000 francs—” said Mercédès, shuddering.
“Are the half of the sum, mother; the other will be paid in a year.”
Mercédès raised her eyes to heaven with an expression it would be impossible to describe, and tears, which had hitherto been restrained, now yielded to her emotion, and ran down her cheeks.
“The price of his blood!” she murmured.
“Yes, if I am killed,” said Albert, laughing. “But I assure you, mother, I have a strong intention of defending my person, and I never felt half so strong an inclination to live as I do now.”