“Ah! I know the rest! He has more rights over my fortune than I myself possess, and he uses them in my interest, I am willing to believe it, but he forgets, that in this, my conscience is concerned; and for whom? He has an immense personal fortune and no children; I have then before God the right to despoil myself of a portion of my wealth in order not to ruin honest people, victims of a question of procedure.”
“Such a sentiment is worthy of you, madame, and I am not here to dispute so fine a right, but to remind you of our duty, and to beg of you not to require us to be faithless to our trust. All the concessions consistent with the success of your suit, we will observe, even should we incur the reproaches of M. d’Ionis and those of his mother. But to withdraw from the accepted task, declaring that success is doubtful, and that it would be better to compromise, is what a thorough investigation of the affair forbids us to do, under penalty of falsehood and betrayal.”
“Indeed, no! You are mistaken,” cried Madame d’Ionis excitedly. “I assure you, you are mistaken. These are legal subtilities which may deceive a man grown old in the practice of law, but that a sensible young man ought not to accept as an absolute rule of conduct.... If your father has undertaken the suit, and you admit that he has done so at my request, it is because he foresaw my intentions. Had he been ignorant of them, I should greatly regret the fact, and I would think that you did not entertain the esteem for me that I would have liked to inspire in the members of your family. In this case where one feels that victory would be horrible, one does not fear to propose peace before the battle. To act otherwise is to conceive a false idea of duty. Duty is not a military password, it is a religion, and a religion which would prescribe evil, ceases to be one. Hush! speak to me no more of your charge. Do not place M. d’Ionis’ ambition above my honor, do not make a sacred thing of this ambition. It is a disgraceful thing, no more, and no less. Unite your efforts with mine to save these unfortunate people. Act so that I may find in you a friend after my own heart, rather than an infallible legislator and an implacable lawyer!”
While speaking thus she gave me her hand and enveloped me in the enthusiastic fire of her beautiful eyes. I lost my head and covering her hand with kisses, I felt myself conquered. In fact, I was so in advance I had been of her opinion before seeing her. I still defended myself however, for I had sworn to my father that I would not yield to the sentimental considerations that his client had caused him to foresee in her letters. Madame d’Ionis would not hear a word of my defense.
“You speak,” said she, “like a good son, who is pleading his father’s cause, but I would like you better, were you not so good a lawyer.”
“Ah! madame,” I cried heedless of consequences, “do not say that I am pleading against you, for you would make me hate too much a calling for which I feel that I have not the requisite insensibility.”
I will not weary you with the particulars of the law suit instituted by the d’Ionis family against the d’Aillanes. The conversation I have just reported will suffice to explain my story. It concerned an estate of five hundred thousand francs, that is to say, almost all the funded fortune of our beautiful client. M. d’Ionis made a very bad use of the immense wealth that he possessed on his own side of the house. He was given over to dissipation, and the doctors allowed him but two years to live. It was quite possible that he would leave his widow more debts than money. Should Madame d’Ionis renounce the benefit of the law suit, she would then incur the risk of falling from a state of opulence, into a condition of mediocrity to which she had not been brought up. My father pitied the d’Aillane family greatly, a family deserving the highest esteem, and which included a worthy gentleman, his wife and his two children. The loss of the law suit would plunge them into misery; but my father naturally preferred to devote himself to the future of his client and to preserve her from disaster. This was for him a true case of conscience; but he had recommended me not to urge this consideration with her. “Her soul is romantic and sublime,” said he, “and the more her personal interest is alleged, the greater pride and pleasure she will take in the joy of her sacrifice; but with the approach of age, her enthusiasm will disappear. Then look out for regrets; and look out also for the reproaches that she will justly heap upon us for not having wisely counselled her.”
My father did not know that I was so much of an enthusiast in fact. Engaged in numberless affairs, he had confided to me the care of subduing the generous impulses of this admirable woman, by taking refuge behind pretended scruples which he only considered as accessories. It was a very good idea, but he had not foreseen any more than myself that I would share Madame d’Ionis’ opinion to such an extent. I was at an age when material wealth is of no value in the imagination; it is a period of a wealth of heart.
And then this woman, who produced upon me the effect of a spark on powder; this despicable absent husband condemned by his physicians; the moderate circumstances which threatened her, and towards which she smilingly stretched her arms—how did I know?
I was an only son, my father possessed some fortune and I could also acquire one. I was only a bourgeois, who owed a position to a magistracy in the past, and in the present to the consideration attached to talent and probity; but we were in the midst of a philosophical period, and without thinking ourselves on the verge of a radical revolution, one could readily admit the idea of an impoverished woman of quality, marrying a man of lower condition in easy circumstances.