"I am learning. Continue," said Antony, but there was no mock in his eyes. Only he smiled a little.
"They both had a fine contempt of death and a manner of grand seigneur and a perfect philosophy. They had the refinement of sentiment of the ancien régime, only they were much less coarse. And in the ancien régime one worshipped the King and the constitution of France, whereas grandmamma and the Marquis worshipped only le beau in everything, which is higher than an individual."
"How well you tell it! I shall have to reorganize my religion."
"You are laughing at me!"
"No, I am not. I am deeply interested. Go on," and he leaned back in the straight-backed arm-chair.
"'Never stay in the mud,' was another of grandmamma's maxims. 'It happens that the best of us may fall there in life, but no one need stay there,' she used to say. Even the common people could rise out of it if they a fine enough spirit. But we were the examples, and one must never give a bad example. For instance, the common people might cry when they were hurt. They were only lower creatures and under the protection of the others. They could roar, if it pleased them, as they were the model of no one. But we could not cry, to encourage this foolishness."
"And so you lived and learned all that, dear little Comtesse! No wonder your eyes are so wise."
"I remember once I became impatient with some new stitches in my embroidery that would not go right, and I flung the piece down and stamped on it and tore it. Grandmamma said nothing, but she deliberately undid a ball of silk and tangled it dreadfully, and then gave it to me to straighten out. It was not to irritate me, she said. But patience and discipline were necessary to enable one to get through life with decency and pleasure, and while I untangled the silk I should have time to reflect upon how comically ridiculous I had been to throw down and trample upon an inanimate thing that only my personal stupidity had caused to annoy me."
Antony looked at me a long time. He sighed a short, quick sigh, and then said, gayly:
"You must certainly write a book for the training of the young. But what did your grandmother say of such things as strong passions—the mad love of one person for another, for instance? Could they be ruled by maxims?"