Page:Novels of Honoré de Balzac Volume 23.djvu/209

 God, who sees all, that you have never committed any dishonorable action, that your debts were the result of youthful impulse, and that, finally, your honor is unsullied? If your blameless father were there, alive, in this armchair, if he asked you for an account of your conduct, after having listened to you, would he embrace you?”

“Yes, mother,” said the young man, with respectful seriousness.

She then opened her arms and pressed her son to her heart while shedding a few tears.

“Then let us forget it all,” she said, “it is only a little money the less; I will pray God that we may recover it, and, since you are still worthy of your name, kiss me, for I have suffered much!”

“I swear, my dear mother,” he said, stretching out his hand over the bed, “never again to give you the least trouble of this sort, and to do all I can to atone for my early shortcomings.”

“Come to breakfast, my child,” she said, leaving the room.

If the laws of the stage are to be applied to this story, Savinien’s arrival, by introducing to Nemours the only character yet wanting amongst those who are to figure in this little drama, here brings the prologue to an end.