'I had come to ask a service of you,' she said; and forthwith she told the story—Victor a bandit, Victor a fugitive, capable of every crime. 'We cannot abandon him,' she added. 'Come with me; let us unite our efforts.'
He did not allow her to finish, however, but, turning livid, trembling from fear, as if he had felt some dirty murderous hand upon his shoulder, exclaimed: 'Well, that was the only thing wanting! A thief for a father, an assassin for a brother! I have remained here too long; I wanted to start last week. Why, it is abominable, abominable, to put a man like me in such a position!'
Then, as she insisted, he became insolent. 'Let me alone, I tell you. Since this life of worry amuses you, stay in it. I warned you, remember; it serves you right if you weep to-day. But, for my own part, rather than put myself out for them in the slightest degree, I would sweep the whole villainous crew into the gutter.'
She had risen to her feet. 'Good-bye, then.'
'Good-bye.'
And, as she withdrew, she saw him summoning his valet again, and superintending the careful packing of a nécessaire de toilette, the silver-gilt pieces of which were chased in the most gallant fashion, especially the basin, on which was engraved a round of Cupids. While she pictured him going away to live in forgetfulness and idleness, under the bright sun of Naples, she suddenly had a vision of the other one, hungry, prowling, on a dark, muggy night, with a knife in his hands, in some lonely alley of La Villette or Charonne. Was not this the answer to the question whether money is not education, health, and intelligence? Since the same human mire remains beneath, does not all civilisation reduce itself to the superiority of smelling nice and living well?
On reaching the Institute of Work Madame Caroline experienced a keen feeling of revolt at sight of all the vast luxury of the establishment. Of what use were those two majestic wings, one for the boys and the other for the girls, connected by the monumental pavilion reserved for the offices? Of what use were those yards as large as parks, those faïence walls in the kitchens, those marbles in the dining-halls, those staircases and corridors broad enough for a palace? Of what use was all that grandiose charity if they could not, in such spacious and salubrious surroundings, straighten an ill-bred creature, turn a perverted child into a well-behaved man, with the upright reason of health?
She went straight to the director, and pressed him with questions, wishing to know the slightest details. But the drama was veiled in obscurity; he could only repeat what she had already learnt from the Princess. Since the previous day the investigations had continued, both in the Institute and in the neighbourhood, but without yielding the slightest result. Victor was already far away, galloping through the city, in the depths of the frightful unknown. He could not have any money left, for Alice's purse, which he had emptied, had only contained three francs and four sous. The director, moreover, had avoided informing the police, in order to spare the poor Beauvilliers ladies from public scandal; and Madame Caroline thanked him, promising that she herself would take no steps at the Prefecture, in spite of her ardent desire to know what had become of the lad. Then, in despair at going away as ignorant as she had come, it occurred to her to repair to the infirmary to question the sisters. But even there she could get no precise information, though she enjoyed a few minutes of profound appeasement in the quiet little room which separated the girls' dormitory from that of the boys A joyous tumult was now rising from the yards; it was playtime, and she felt that she had not done justice to the happy cures effected by open air, comfort, and work. Lads were growing up here who would certainly prove strong and healthy men. Four or five men of average honesty to one bandit, surely that would still be a fine result, in the chances that aggravate or diminish hereditary vices!
Left alone for a moment by the sister on duty, Madame Caroline had just approached a window to watch the children playing below, when the crystalline voices of some little girls in the adjoining infirmary attracted her. The door was half open; she could witness the scene without being noticed. This infirmary was a very cheerful room, with its white walls and its four beds draped with white curtains. A broad sheet of sunlight was gilding all the whiteness, a blooming of lilies, as it were, in the warm atmosphere. In the first bed on the left she clearly recognised Madeleine, the little convalescent whom she had seen there, eating bread and jam, on the day when she had brought Victor to the Institute. The child was always falling ill, consumed by the alcoholism of her race, so poor in blood, too, that, with her large womanly eyes, she was as slender and pale as the saints that one sees in stained-glass windows. She was now thirteen years old, and quite alone in the world, her mother having died from violence during a drunken orgy. And Madeleine it was who, kneeling in the middle of her bed in her long white nightdress, with her fair hair streaming over her shoulders, was teaching a prayer to three little girls occupying the three other beds.
'Join your hands like this, open your hearts very wide.'