“I am sure I am very glad you didn’t shoot her,” said Newman. “I was afraid you might have shot yourself. That is why I came to look you up.” And he began to button his coat.
“Neither,” said M. Nioche. “You despise me, and I can’t explain to you. I hoped I shouldn’t see you again.”
“Why, that’s rather shabby,” said Newman. “You shouldn’t drop your friends that way. Besides, the last time you came to see me I thought you particularly jolly.”
“Yes, I remember,” said M. Nioche musingly; “I was in a fever. I didn’t know what I said, what I did. It was delirium.”
“Ah, well, you are quieter now.”
M. Nioche was silent a moment. “As quiet as the grave,” he whispered softly.
“Are you very unhappy?”
M. Nioche rubbed his forehead slowly, and even pushed back his wig a little, looking askance at his empty glass. “Yes—yes. But that’s an old story. I have always been unhappy. My daughter does what she will with me. I take what she gives me, good or bad. I have no spirit, and when you have no spirit you must keep quiet. I shan’t trouble you any more.”
“Well,” said Newman, rather disgusted at the smooth operation of the old man’s philosophy, “that’s as you please.”
M. Nioche seemed to have been prepared to be despised but nevertheless he made a feeble movement of appeal from Newman’s faint praise. “After all,” he said, “she is my daughter, and I can still look after her. If she will do wrong, why she will. But there are many different paths, there are degrees. I can give her the benefit—give her the benefit”—and M. Nioche paused, staring vaguely at Newman, who began to suspect that his brain had softened—“the benefit of my experience,” M. Nioche added.