“Of course I do not count Paul,” continued the girl, “for he is the same as myself.”
“Unhappy child!” exclaimed the banker in so furious a voice, and with such a threatening gesture of the hand, that for the first time in her life Flavia was afraid of her father.
“What have I done?” asked she, the tears springing to her eyes. “I only said to Paul that we should be terribly ungrateful if we did not worship him; for you don’t know what he does for us. Why, he even dresses up in rags, and goes to see you.”
Hortebise, who up to this time had not said a word, now interfered.
“And what did Paul say?” asked he.
“Paul? Oh, nothing for a moment. Then he cried out, ‘I see it all now,’ and laughed as if he would have gone into a fit.”
“Did you not understand, my poor child, what this laugh means? Paul thinks that you have been my accomplice, and believes that it was in obedience to your orders that I went to look for him.”
“Well, and suppose he does?”
“A man like Paul never loves a woman who has run after him; and no matter how great her beauty may be, will always consider that she has thrown herself in his path. He will accept all her devotion, and make no more return than a stone or a wooden idol would do. You cannot see this, and God grant that it may be long before the bandage is removed from your eyes. Can you not read the quality of this foolish boy, who has not a manly instinct in him?”
“Enough!” she cried, “enough! I am not such a coward as to allow you to insult my husband.”