Touched by the expression of the soldier’s countenance, the marshal continued, less abruptly: “Come, I may be wrong; and yet I ask you, without bitterness or jealousy, are not my children more confiding, more familiar, with you than with me?”
“God bless me, general!” cried Dagobert; “if you come to that, they are more familiar with Spoil-sport than with either of us. You are their father; and, however kind a father may be, he must always command some respect. Familiar with me! I should think so. A fine story! What the devil should they respect in me, who, except that I am six feet high, and wear a moustache, might pass for the old woman that nursed them?—and then I must say, that, even before the death of your worthy father, you were sad and full of thought; the children have remarked that; and what you take for coldness on their part, is, I am sure, anxiety for you. Come, general; you are not just. You complain, because they love you too much.”
“I complain, because I suffer,” said the marshal, in an agony of excitement. “I alone know my sufferings.”
“They must indeed be grievous, general,” said Dagobert, carried further than he would otherwise have gone by his attachment for the orphans, “since those who love you feel them so cruelly.”
“What, sir! more reproaches?”
“Yes, general, reproaches,” cried Dagobert. “Your children have the right to complain of you, since you accuse them so unjustly.”
“Sir,” said the marshal, scarcely able to contain himself, “this is enough—this is too much!”
“Oh, yes! it is enough,” replied Dagobert, with rising emotion. “Why defend unfortunate children, who can only love and submit? Why defend them against your unhappy blindness?”
The marshal started with anger and impatience, but then replied, with a forced calmness: “I needs must remember all that I owe you—and I will not forget it, say what you will.”
“But, general,” cried Dagobert, “why will you not let me fetch your children?”