"If by usefulness and activity you mean manual labor, I certainly have neither felled a tree, nor ploughed a field, nor hammered a horse-shoe. I have lived by thought alone."
"Then I fear you have lived a very idle life," said Hortense, smiling. "Are you married?"
"Married!" I echoed, indignantly. "How can you ask the question?"
"You are not a magistrate?"
"Certainly not."
"In short, then, you are perfectly useless. You play no part, domestic or public. You serve neither the state nor the community. You are a mere cypher--a make-weight in the social scale--an article of no value to any one except the owner."
"Not even the latter, mademoiselle," I replied, bitterly. "It is long since I have ceased to value my own life."
She smiled again, but her eyes this time were full of tears.
"Nay," said she, softly, "am I not the owner?"