Antonino did not understand the allusion, for he had never felt less like dying than since Césarine had been seen again.
"I mean that she sends the chill of death into the soul, heart and brain of man, and it congeals the marrow in his bones!" said Clemenceau, energetically. "You may say that if she is a wicked woman and if, whatever her defense, her absence covers some evil step, I ought to separate from her. It is all the present state of the law allows. But while her absence would have prevented you, or another friend, from meeting her, still she would have borne my name. That name I am doubly bound to make honorable, for it was stained with blood—that of one of her ever-accursed race. My father won an illustrious name and, her ancestress, whom he married, was dragging it publically in the mud amid all the scandals of society, when he slew her on her couch of gilded infamy. Ashamed of this name—not because he was indicated under it, but because she had so vilified it—his greatest desire to the friends who visited him in the condemned cell, was to have me, his son, change it. They had me brought up at a distance under the name of Claudius Ruprecht. It might even have happened that another country than that of my birth would receive the glory which a heaven-sent idea is to bestow upon France. Now, I am more than ever determined that her venom shall not sully me. She may cause a little ridicule to arise, but that I can scorn. The laugh at Montmorency will not reach Paris, far less echo around the globe! For a long time I hoped to enlighten her and redeem her, but I have failed. But I am bound to enlighten you and save you, am I not? From the feeling you harbor can spring only an additional shame for Césarine, and certain, perhaps irreparable woe for you. Stop, turn about and look the other way. A man of twenty, who may naturally live another three-score years and work during two of them, who would talk to you of that nonsense, love's sorrow? That was all very well once, when the world revolved slowly and there was little to be done by the people who blocked nobody's way. But these are busy times and things to be done cannot wait till you finish loving and wailing, or till you die of a broken heart without having done anything for your fellow men."
"Bravo!" exclaimed the sympathetical and easily aroused Italian, grasping the speaker by the hand and pressing it with revived energy. "My excellent leader, you are right!"
"And by and by," said the other, with an effort, as though he had to master inward commotion, "when you win a prize from your own country and you look for household joys more agreeably to reward you, you may find one not far from here at this moment to be your wife. For, generally, the bane is near the antidote—the serpent is crushed under the heel next the beneficent plant which heals the bite."
"Rebecca?" questioned the young man in amazement. "But if I can read her heart as you do mine, master, Rebecca Daniels loves you."
"She admires me and pities me, Antonino," replied Clemenceau, hastily, as if wishful to elude the question. "She does not love me. Besides, that is of no consequence. I have no room for love again—always provided that I have once loved. Passion often has the honor of being confounded with the purer feeling, especially in the young. Did I love that monster—for she is a monster, Antonino—I might forgive, for love excuses everything—that is true love, but it is rare as virtue—common sense and all that is truth. To the altar of love, many are called, but few elected, and all are not fit.
"I see you are not convinced, because the dog that bit me is so shapely, and graceful and wears so silky a coat! Such dogs are mad and their bite in the heart is fatal and agonizing unless one at once applies the white hot cautery. The seam remains—from time to time it aches—but the victim's life is saved that he may save, serve, gladden his fellow men. Would you rather I should weep, or force a smile, and appear happy for a period? In any case, since I have cured the injury and she is in my house again, I shall not retaliate on her. But if she threatens to become a public danger—if she bares her poisonous fangs to harm my friend—my son—another—let her beware!"
"Master," stammered Antonino, beginning to see the temptress in the new light, as Felix had often shown him other objects to which he had been blind, "you may or may not judge her too harshly, but you certainly judge me too leniently. Better to let me go away, and far, or at least, since you began the revelation, make the evidence complete of your trust and esteem."
Clemenceau saw that the young man still believed in Césarine, but he did not care to tell him all he knew of her. Had he been told that she had encouraged Gratian to flee with her and had abandoned him at the first danger, without lifting a finger to save him, or her voice to procure him succor, he might loathe and hate her; but Clemenceau meant to say nothing. Such revelations, and denunciations are permissible alone to wrath, revenge, or despair, in the man whose heart is still bleeding from the wound made in it so that his outburst is sealed by his blood.
"No, Antonino, by my mouth no one shall ever know all that woman has done—or what victories I have won over myself—in severe wrestlings."