“Why does Maurice prefer Mrs. Frasne to us even in gaol?” he began. “It’s absurd, since she doesn’t run any risk of punishment. He betrays his family for a false point of honour. One hundred thousand francs! To raise all that money, isn’t it beyond your power? You mustn’t attempt the impossible.”
“But suppose you must attempt the impossible to save him?” put in Margaret.
“Well, then,” concluded Mr. Roquevillard, who wanted a positive answer, “you also, Charles, advise me to desert my son?”
Marcellaz lowered his head, to avoid the ironical eyes of young Leo, and murmured shamefacedly:
“No, just the same.”
When he raised his head again he was surprised by the look in his father-in-law’s eyes. Their habitually masterful expression was veiled and tender, with an unaccustomed sweetness, as of one surprised by the flow of a stream whose humble source he has discovered beneath some bit of verdure.
“Your turn, Thérèse,” he said next.
The widow, since her son’s speech, had not heard a single word of what was said, and the question did not have to be repeated. She was governed by a sure instinct, and did not confuse herself with principles, which she applied better than she could define them. Like most women, she promptly substituted personalities for questions of theory, a method which at least had the merit of keeping abstract solutions at safe distance and scattering metaphysical mists. Throughout the debate she had retained but one word, but that one was a good one. She couldn’t speak to more than one person at a time, and so she laid hold on Leo, regardless of the other members of the assembly.
“Each one for himself, did you say?” she began. “If your uncle here had practised that fine maxim, my boy, you would not this moment be at the head of a factory that brings you in hundreds and hundreds of francs.”
“Mother, you’re laughing at me,” interrupted Leo, his self-esteem wounded by this sally.