"Well, I am thirty, myself," said the Chevalier with assumed lightness. "I am neither young nor old. I stand on the threshold. I can not say that I have suffered since I have known only physical discomforts. But to call me 'son' …"
"Well, then," replied the priest, smiling, "since the disparity in years is so small as to destroy the dignity of the term, I shall call you my brother. All men are brothers; it is the Word."
"That is true." How familiar this priest's eyes were! "But some are rich and some are poor; beggars and thieves and cutthroats; nobly and basely born."
The Jesuit gazed thoughtfully into his bowl. "Yes, some are nobly and some are basely born. I have often contemplated what a terrible thing it must be to possess a delicate, sensitive soul and a body disowned; to long for the glories of the world from behind the bar sinister, an object of scorn, contumely and forgetfulness; to be cut away from the love of women and the affection of men, the two strongest of human ties; to dream what might and should have been; to be proved guilty of a crime we did not commit; to be laughed at, to beg futilely, always subject to that mental conflict between love and hate, charity and envy. Yes; I can think of nothing which stabs so deeply as the finger of ridicule, unmerited. I am not referring to the children of kings, but to the forgotten by the lesser nobility."
His voice had risen steadily, losing its music but gaining a thrilling intenseness. Strange words for a priest, thought the Chevalier, who had spoken with irony aforethought. Glories of the world, the love of women; did not all priests forswear these? Perhaps his eyes expressed his thought, for he noted a faint color on the priest's checks.
"I am speaking as a moral physician, Monsieur," continued the priest, his composure recovered; "one who seeks to observe all spiritual diseases in order to apply a remedy."
"And is there a remedy for a case such as you have described?" asked the Chevalier, half mockingly.
"Yes; God gives us a remedy even for such an ill."
"And what might the remedy be?"
"Death."