Yes, Florian reflected, there were priests everywhere,—the Brahmans of Malabar, the Piaches of the Arawaks, the Dedes of Lycia, the Chodsas of the Dersim uplands, and the Ankuts of the Esquimaux,—to all these priests was formally relegated the performing of this task when a woman was about to marry. Every part of the world wherein mankind remained unspoiled by civilization, reflected Florian, afforded an exact and honorable precedent: and he could advance no ground for complaint. For one was logical. Certain physical reservations were made much of, to be sure, in Holy Writ and in the sermons preached in convents to auditories of schoolgirls. And this theory perhaps did no great harm. But, after all, there was a grain of folly in this theory that to-day’s letters still in the post contained of necessity more virtuous matter than did yesterday’s letters, whose seals had been broken. No, let us be logical about this theory.
He closed his snuff-box. The lid bore the portrait of poor Philippe. He regretted Philippe, who had been destroyed with no real gain to anybody. Florian slipped the box into his waistcoat pocket....
Hoprig’s painstaking forethought, then, gave a philosopher no ground for wonder or dissatisfaction. But none the less, in the heart of Florian was despair and terror. The terms of his bargain had not been fulfilled, and the one course open to a gentleman who held by his word was to go on living with his disenchanted princess for, at the very least—he estimated, appalled,—another full year.
Florian extended his right hand, dusting the fingers one against the other. He liked those long white fingers. But this was simply dreadful: and he would have to speak now, he would have to say something. They were both waiting. Negligently he straightened the Mechlin ruffles at his throat....
Then with a riotous surge of joy, he recollected that the current conventions of society afforded him a colorable pretext to provoke the saint into annihilating him. As against continuing to live within earshot of Melior’s insufferable jabbering,—as against a year of hourly frettings under a gross-minded idiot’s blasphemies against the bright and flawless shrine of beauty which she inhabited,—the everywhere betrayed romantic had still the refuge of bodily destruction in this world and damnation in the next. And all because of a graceful social convention! all because of one of those fine notions which, precisely as he had always contended, made human living among the amenities of civilization so much more comely and more satisfying than was the existence of such savages as lived ignobly with no guide except common-sense. The Piaches and the Brahmans and the Ankuts were all savages, and their obscene notions were wholly abominable.
“Madame,” said Florian, with his best dignity, “whatever the contrast between the purity of your intentions and of your conduct, I shall cling to the old simple faith of my ancestors. I am a Puysange. I do not care for airdrawn abstractions, I do not palter with such dangerous subtleties as you suggest. I act with the forthright simplicity which becomes a gentleman, and I avenge my wounded honor.”
Whereupon, with due respect for the possible incandescence of a halo, Florian struck Hoprig on the jaw.
“Now, holy Michael aid me!” cried the saint, and he closed upon Florian, straightforwardly, without any miracle-working.
And as Hoprig spoke, there was a great peal of thunder. The crash, with its long shuddering reverberations was utterly appalling, but Hoprig was not appalled. Instead, he had drawn away from Florian, and Hoprig was now smiling deprecatingly.
“Dear me!” the saint observed, “but I am always forgetting. And now, I suppose, they will be vexed again.”