"With reference to your disappointed affection, and—to your ideas of vengeance."
"Oh, monsieur, with regard to my affection, I shall, perhaps, some day or other, succeed in tearing it from my heart; I trust I shall do so, aided by Heaven's merciful help, and your wise exhortations. As far as vengeance is concerned, it occurred to me only when under the influence of an evil thought, for I could not revenge myself upon the one who is actually guilty; I have, therefore, already renounced every idea of revenge."
"And so you no longer think of seeking a quarrel with M. de Saint-Aignan?"
"No, monsieur; I sent him a challenge; if M. de Saint-Aignan accepts it, I will maintain it; if he does not take it up, I will leave it where it is."
"And La Valliere?"
"You cannot, I know, have seriously thought that I should dream of revenging myself upon a woman?" replied Raoul, with a smile so sad that a tear started even to the eyes of his father, who had so many times in the course of his life been bowed beneath his own sorrows and those of others.
He held out his hand to Raoul, which the latter seized most eagerly.
"And so, Monsieur le Comte, you are quite satisfied that the misfortune is without a remedy?" inquired the young man.
"Poor boy!" he murmured.
"You think that I still live in hope," said Raoul, "and you pity me. Oh, it is indeed a horrible suffering for me to despise, as I ought to do, the one I have loved so devotedly. If I only had but some real cause of complaint against her, I should be happy, and should be able to forgive her."