“Oh, is it so? Is it really so? But you said just now that everything depended on your seeing my father.”
“To a soldier, his honour, his professional standing, are everything—”
Seeing a painful expression in Génifrède’s face, he explained that even his private happiness—the prosperity of his love, depended on his professional honour and standing. She must be as well aware as himself that he was now wholly at her father’s mercy, as regarded all his prospects in life; and that this would justify any eagerness to see him.
“At his mercy,” repeated Génifrède; “and he is merciful. He does acts of mercy every day.”
“True—true. You see now you were too much alarmed.”
“But, Moyse, how came you to need his mercy? But two days ago how proud he was of you! and now—Oh! Moyse, when you knew what depended on these few days, how could you fail?”
“How was it that, he put me into an office that I was not fit for? He should have seen—”
“Then let us leave him, and all these affairs which make us so miserable. Let us go to your father. He will let us live at Saint Domingo in peace.”
Moyse shook his head, saying that there were more whites at Saint Domingo than in any other part of the island; and the plain truth was, he could not live where there were whites.
“How was it then that you pleased my father so much when Hédouville went away? He whispered to me, in the piazza at Pongaudin, that, next to himself, you saved the town—that many whites owed their lives and their fortunes to you.”