CHAPTER VII
I AM FORTUNATE IN FINDING A NEW FRIEND
I sat looking at him without answering, dismayed somewhat at the gravity of his face. Yet there were still the kindly eyes and mouth—surely I need fear no injustice from this man!
“I will tell you the story, M. le Comte,” I said, after a moment’s thought. “You shall judge for yourself in how far I am guilty.” And I gave him a detailed account of everything that had happened from the moment I had encountered Mlle. Ribaut in the Rue de l’Evêque until the moment of my arrest. D’Argenson did not once interrupt me, but glanced at me keenly from time to time, and remained for a moment silent after I had finished.
“M. le Moyne,” he said at last, “I need not tell you that you have been setting the law at defiance in all this, and that however I may respect you as a man of honor, as lieutenant of police there is only one course open to me, and that is to punish you. A father or legal guardian has an absolute and unquestioned right to dispose of a girl’s hand in marriage. There are only two conditions under which this right can be called into question. One is when there is some legal impediment which would prevent the marriage and which is being concealed. The other is when the proposed marriage is in the nature of a conspiracy, for the purpose of defrauding the girl in some way, or of doing her some other wrong.”
“Ah, Monsieur,” I cried, “if you could but see this creature, this Briquet! He is hideous, horrible! It seems to me that it is wrong enough that any girl should be compelled to marry him and live with such a monster.”
D’Argenson laughed bitterly.
“I have seen him, M. le Moyne,” he said. “It was he who came here to make complaint against you on behalf of M. Ribaut. I confess he is not lovely, but you could scarce expect me to take action on that ground, else I should be pronouncing a decree against my own countenance.”
“But there is a difference, M. le Comte!” I cried, and I wondered that I had ever thought him repulsive. “Mere irregularity of features, or even disfigurement, does not constitute ugliness. No countenance is offensive, Monsieur, which is lighted by kindly eyes and a smiling mouth. It is not so with Briquet. One shrinks from him instinctively as from a snake.”
D’Argenson did not answer, but sat musing deeply.
At last he raised his head.