"You are quite right," said Morand; "and as for myself, I frankly confess I consider a woman very contemptible when she affects the demeanor of a man, and a man a coward, unworthy of the name, when he insults a woman, even were she his bitterest enemy."
Morand was gradually drawing Maurice on to delicate ground. Maurice on his side replied by an affirmative sign. The lists being opened, Dixmer, like the sounding herald, added,—
"One moment, one moment, Citizen Morand; you except, I hope, those women who are known enemies of the nation?"
A silence of some moments succeeded this "parry and thrust" to the response of Morand and the sign of Maurice. Maurice first interrupted the silence.
"Let us except no one," said he, sadly; "those females who have been enemies to the nation are now, it appears to me, sufficiently punished."
"You allude to the prisoners of the Temple,—to the Austrian, the sister and daughter of Capet?" cried Dixmer, with a rapidity which deprived his words of all expression.
Morand changed color while awaiting the reply of the young Republican, seeming to sink his nails into his breast in the intensity of his interest.
"Just so," said Maurice, "it is of them I am speaking."
"Who?" said Morand, in stifled tones. "Is what they say, true?"
"What do they say?" demanded the young man.