—True, I have been rather abrupt, I was wrong; well, don't let us talk about it any more, hang it.
But Suzanne, having recovered herself, wanted to enjoy her triumph to the end.
—I don't know what you could have meant, she added still in tears, by coming and telling me in an angry tone that a man had been walking in your asparagus, as if it were my fault.
—It is true nevertheless, Suzanne. It is quite plain. I arrived this morning quite dusty from my journey, and went down into the garden very quietly as I usually do, thinking of nothing, when all at once I stopped. What did I behold? … footsteps, child, a man's footsteps, right in the middle of my borders. "Hang it," I cried, "here is a blackguard who makes himself at home." I followed their track, which led me to the wall of the house and right up to the stair-case. That was rather bad, you know. There was still some fresh soil on the steps. Good Heavens! I asked myself then what it meant, and I came to you to learn.
—To me, father. But I know no more about it than you do. Why do you suppose that I know more about it than you?
Durand had great confidence in his daughter: he knew her to be giddy and frivolous, but he did not suppose for an instant her giddiness and frivolity amounted to the forgetfulness of duty.
Many fathers in this manner allow themselves to be deceived by their children with the same blindness and meekness as foolish husbands are deceived by their wives, till the day, when the bandage which covered their eyes, falls at length, and they discover to their amazement that the cherub which they had brought up with so much care and love, and whose long roll of good qualities, talents and virtues they loved to recount before strangers, is nothing but a little being saturated with vice and hide-bound in overweening vanity.
He embraced her with a father's tender and affectionate look, and for some time gazed upon Suzanne's clear eyes:
—No, he said to himself, there can be no vice in this young soul; is not this calm brow and these pure eyes the evidence of the purity of her soul?
And, taking one of her hands in his, he remained near her bed and said to her gently: