"Ah! my dear child, it's very easy to say that. When you have had a little more experience of life you will be more indulgent. One has to be more merciful. You are young."
"No, it's something I've inherited, this is. I'm your daughter, and there's too much of you in me, that's what it is. I shall never be able to swallow things that disgust me. It's the way I'm made—how can I help it? Every time I see any one I know—or even any one I don't know—fail in what you men call points of honour, well, I can't help it at all, but it has the same effect on me as the sight of a toad. I have such a horror of it, and it disgusts me so, that I want to step on it. Come now, do you call a man honourable because he takes care to only do abominable things for which he can't be tried in the law courts? Do you call a man honourable when he has done something for which he must blush when he is alone? Is a man honourable when he has done things for which no one can reproach him and for which he cannot be punished, but which tarnish his conscience? I think there are things that are lower and viler than cheating at the card-table; and the indulgence with which society looks on makes me feel as though society is an accomplice, and I think it is perfectly revolting. There are things that are so disloyal, so dishonest, that when I think of them it makes me quite merciful towards out-and-out scoundrels. You see they do risk something; their life is at stake and their liberty. They go in for things prepared to win or lose: they don't put gloves on to do their infamous deeds. I like that better; it's not so cowardly, anyhow!"
Renée was seated on a sofa at the far side of the drawing-room. Her arms were folded, her hands feverish, and her whole body quivering with emotion. She spoke in jerks, and her voice vibrated with the wrath she felt in her very soul. Her eyes looked like fire lighting up her face, which was in the shade.
"And very interesting, too, he is," she continued, "your M. de Montbreton. He has an income of six hundred or six hundred and fifty pounds. If he did not pay quite such a high house-rent, and if his daughters had not always had their dresses made by Mme. Carpentier——"
"Ah, this requires consideration," put in Denoisel. "A man who has more than two hundred a year, if a bachelor, and more than four hundred if married, can perfectly well remain faithful to a government which is no longer in power. His means allow him to regret——"
"And he will expect you to esteem him, to shake hands with him, and raise your hat to him as usual," continued Renée. "No, it is rather too much! I hope when he comes here, papa—well, I shall promptly go straight out of the room."
"Will you have a glass of water, Renée?" asked M. Mauperin, smiling; "you know orators always do. You were really fine just then. Such eloquence—it flowed like a brook."
"Yes, make fun of me by all means. You know I get carried away, as you tell me. And your Montbreton—but how silly I am, to be sure. He doesn't belong to us, this man, does he? Oh, if it were one of my family who had done such a thing, such a dishonourable thing, such a——"
She stopped short for a second, and then began again:
"I think," she said, speaking with an effort, as though the tears were coming into her eyes, "I think I could never love him again. Yes, it seems to me as though my heart would be perfectly hard as far as he was concerned."