“I don’t like you to speak as if this trouble were poor Léon’s fault,” said Félicie, in her thin, gentle voice.
Claire began to laugh.
“Whose, then? Yours or mine? I have not spent a penny for a month, so I cannot feel that I am responsible; and though you are disposed to be extravagant for the Church—”
“That is only one’s duty.”
“As you like, ma chère. I was going to add that you had no money to give, so that we can hardly lay our ruin at your door. Who is there but Léon?”
“Our mother thinks he has met with some misfortune.”
“Bah!” said Claire, under her breath. “It is no misfortune. I love Léon as well as you love him, but I can see his faults. He is no saint. This is his doing, and his only. He has squandered his money, and in bad ways.”
“What bad ways?” asked her sister, with wide-open eyes. “If I were to tell you, you would be shocked.”
“You can’t know!”
“Do I not? Léon is horribly careless, and if you were to see some of the photographs and letters he leaves scattered about his room, you would acknowledge that I know what I am talking about.”