The Marquis said to his daughter: "Hey! darling, you may perhaps one day be one of the richest women in France, and people will talk of you as they do about the Rothschilds. Will has truly a remarkable, very remarkable—a great intelligence."
But a morose and whimsical jealousy entered all at once into Paul's heart.
"Let me alone now," said he, "I know it, the intelligence of all those engaged in stirring up business. They have only one thing in their heads—money! All the thoughts that we bestow on beautiful things, all the actions that we waste on our caprices, all the hours which we fling away for our distractions, all the strength that we squander on our pleasures, all the ardor and the power which love, divine love, takes from us, they employ in seeking for gold, in thinking of gold, in amassing gold! The man of intelligence lives for all the great disinterested tendernesses, the arts, love, science, travels, books; and, if he seeks money, it is because this facilitates the true pleasures of intellect and even the happiness of the heart! But they—they have nothing in their minds or their hearts but this ignoble taste for traffic! They resemble men of worth, these skimmers of life, just as much as the picture-dealer resembles the painter, as the publisher resembles the writer, as the theatrical manager resembles the dramatic poet."
He suddenly became silent, realizing that he had allowed himself to be carried away, and in a calmer voice he went on: "I don't say that of Andermatt, whom I consider a charming man. I like him a great deal, because he is a hundred times superior to all the others."
Christiane had withdrawn her hand. Paul once more stopped talking. Gontran began to laugh; and, in his malicious voice, with which he ventured to say everything, in his hours of mocking and raillery:
"In any case, my dear fellow, these men have one rare merit: that is, to marry our sisters and to have rich daughters, who become our wives."
The Marquis, annoyed, rose up: "Oh! Gontran, you are perfectly revolting."
Paul thereupon turned toward Christiane, and murmured: "Would they know how to die for one woman, or even to give her all their fortune—all—without keeping anything?"
This meant so clearly: "All I have is yours, including my life," that she was touched, and she adopted this device in order to take his hands in hers:
"Rise, and lift me up. I am benumbed from not moving."