‘There are many disordered in mind whom affluence presents as but capricious,’ said she, with a half supercilious accent.
‘Be frank with me,’ said he boldly, ‘and say if you suspect derangement here.’
‘Holy father,’ replied she, in the calm voice of one appealing to a mature judgment, ‘you, who read men’s natures, as others do a printed page, well know, that he who is animated strongly by some single sentiment, which infuses itself into every thought, and every action, pervading each moment of his daily life, so as to seem a centre around which all events revolve—that such a man, in the world’s esteem, is of less sane mind than he who gives to fortune but a passing thought, and makes life a mere game of accident. Between these two opposing states this young man’s mind now balances.’
‘But cannot balance long,’ muttered the Père to himself, reflecting on her words. ‘Will his intellect bear the struggle?’ asked he hastily.
‘Ay, if not overtaxed.’
‘I know your meaning; you have told himself that he is not equal to the task before him; I heard and saw what passed between you; I know, too, that you have met before in life; tell me, then, where and how.’ There was a frank, intrepid openness in the way he spoke, that seemed to say, ‘We must deal freely with each other.’
‘Of me you need not to know anything,’ said she proudly, as she arose.
‘Not if you had not penetrated a great secret of mine,’ said Massoni sternly; ‘you cannot deny it—you know who this youth is!’
‘I know whom you would make him,’ said she, in the same haughty tone.
‘What birth and lineage have made him,—not any will of mine.’