Madame André had the penetration of women who have lived much in society, and the shrewdness of a mother pleading her child's cause. She saw what a long step forward she had taken; she forgot, and this time most opportunely, that she was sixty years old, and boldly decided to play the coquette, although it cost her more dearly to employ that ruse with Monsieur Antoine than with any other man.
"Brother," she said, "it rested entirely with you to retain my confidence. I do not reproach you for betraying it; your intentions were kind, but I misunderstood you. I was very young then, and in a plight where everything made me suspicious. I had had no experience of life. I thought that you were advising me to abandon André, whereas——"
"Whereas I said to you in so many words: 'Save him!'"
"Yes, that is true; your action was dictated by affection for him. Well, you see, I was blind, obstinate, whatever you choose to call it; but confess that you ought to have forgiven me for that, have treated me like the child I was, and become my brother once more as in the past."
"You want me to admit that? Why, you always showed me the cold shoulder after that."
"It was your place to laugh at my coldness, and to take my hand and say: 'Sister, you're a little fool; let us embrace and forget the past.'"
"Ah! you think that I should have——"
"The more entirely one is in the right, the more generous he should be!"
"You talk that way now."
"It is never too late to see what is right and to arrange things that are out of place."