XXVIII
"What was he to do? poor Montbreton has four children, and none too much money," said M. Mauperin with a sigh, as he folded up the newspaper in which he had just been reading the official appointments and put it at some distance from him on the table.
"Yes, people always say that. As soon as any one ever does anything mean, people always say 'He has children.' One would think that in society people only had children for the sake of that—for the sake of being able to beg, and to do a lot of mean things. It's just as though the fact of being the father of a family gave you the right to be a scoundrel."
"Come, come, Renée," M. Mauperin began.
"No, it's quite true. I only know two kinds of people: the straightforward, honest ones; and then the others. Four children! But that only ought to serve as an excuse for a father when he steals a loaf. Mère Gigogne would have had the right to poison hers according to that, then. I'm sure Denoisel thinks as I do."
"I? Not at all; indeed I don't! I vote for indulgence in favour of married folks—fathers of families. I should like to see people more charitable, too, towards any one who has a vice—a vice which may be rather ruinous, but which one cannot give up. As to the others, those who have nothing to use their money for, no vice, no wife, no children, and who sell themselves, ruin themselves, bow down, humiliate, enrich, and degrade themselves—ah! I'd give all such over to you willingly."
"I'm not going to talk to you," said Renée in a piqued tone. "Anyhow, papa," she went on, "I cannot understand how it is that it does not make you indignant, you who have always sacrificed everything to your opinions. It's disgusting what he has done, and that's the long and short of it."
"I do not say that it isn't; but you get so excited, child, you get so excited."
"I should think so. Yes, I do get excited—and enough to make me, too. Only fancy, a man who owed everything to the other government, and who said everything bad he could about the present one; and now he joins this one. Why, he's a wretch!—your friend, Montbreton—a wretch!"