“Yes,” said Leroux, eyeing his cup, and reflecting whether he could venture on a second with the hope that M. Bourget would pay. As the waiter passed at this moment he decided to risk the outlay, and to humour his neighbour. “Well, and I have no doubt you would be right.”
“If I did it, certainly it would be right,” M. Bourget returned, superbly; “for you know very well that I do not act without reason.”
“No, no. Never to change one’s opinions would be to pass through life like a machine.”
“What!” cried M. Bourget, with a snort resembling that of an angry bull.
“I remarked merely that, from time to time, one must accommodate one’s ideas,” the lawyer hastened to explain. “I should do so myself.”
“Accommodate one’s ideas! Pray, monsieur, to what do you allude!”
“Peste!” cried M. Leroux, losing patience, “have you not just remarked that were Monsieur de Beaudrillart to stand for the Chamber you would vote for him! I presume that means a change of opinion.”
“Then you are an imbecile!” thundered M. Bourget. “I have never changed my opinions by a jot, and I should despise myself if I did so. Because I consider that Monsieur de Beaudrillart, the owner of Poissy, and the descendant of a long line of ancestors, has a right to be heard in the councils of his country, no one who had not the most mediocre intelligence would conclude that I had embraced his politics. Go, monsieur,” he continued, standing up, and leaning on the table with the points of his fingers. “You are ridiculous!”
If M. Leroux had dared, it would have given him extreme pleasure to have committed M. Bourget, his son-in-law, and Poissy, which by this time he detested, to the hottest place that could have been provided for them. But, although the coffee represented only a lost hope, M. Bourget was now and then able to throw him a few minor law cases which he could not afford to imperil, and he hastened to attempt to pacify his irritated sensibilities.
“Pardon, monsieur; certainly I should have understood you better. Now that you have explained, I see exactly what you meant to express, and what I might have known. Certainly that is a very different thing from changing your opinions.”