Angry though I was with the trick he had played me, his manner was so bland and kind that I was at a loss how to begin.
He it was, indeed, who began by complimenting the beauty of Eloise, her grace and her modesty.
In fact, he had so much to say for her that I could not get in a word.
"All the same," finished he, "I do not quite see the future of this business. You offer Mademoiselle Feliciani a home, you provide for her, your intentions are absolutely honourable, yet you do not love her. That is all very well, mind you. It is somewhat strange in the eyes of the world, but I understand the position. You are a man of heart and honour, and she is, so to speak, an old friend; but what is to be the end of it?"
"I don't know," replied I.
"Just so. She is not a child. It is the nature of a woman to love, to enter into life. Picking daisies in the woods of Sénart may fill a summer morning, but not a woman's life. I am not entirely destitute of the gift of appreciation, the poetry of things is not yet dead for me, and I can see, my dear Patrique, the poetry of two young people, each half a child, playing at childhood. But the garment of a child, beautiful in itself, becomes ridiculous when you dress a man in it. Impossible, in fact. In fact," finished the old gentleman, suddenly dropping metaphor and using his stabbing spear, "you are getting yourself into a position that you cannot escape from with honour; for even if you wish you cannot marry this girl, for the simple reason that Paris would not receive her as your wife."
"I do not wish to marry Mademoiselle Feliciani," replied I, "nor does she dream of marrying me. I found her in wretchedness; I rescued her. I loved her as a friend. Have men and women no hearts but that they must sneer at what is natural and good? What is the barrier that divides a man from a woman so that comradeship seems impossible between them, simplicity, and all good feeling, including Christian charity?"
"Sex," replied M. le Vicomte de Chatellan.