"It is done every day!" said Midon with a careless shrug,—"Women give themselves too easily!"
"And men take too greedily!" said Patoux obstinately—"What virtue there is in the matter is on the woman's side. For she mostly gives herself for love's sake,—but the man cares naught save for his own selfish pleasure. As a man myself, I am on the side of the woman who revenges herself on her betrayer."
"For that matter so am I!" said Midon. "Women have a hard time of it in this world, even under the best of circumstances,—and whatever man makes it harder for them, should be horse-whipped within an inch of his life, if I had my way. I have a wife—and a young daughter—and my old mother sits at home with us, as cheery and bright a body as you would find in all France,—and so I know the worth of women. If any rascal were to insult my girl by so much as a look, he would find himself in the ditch with a sore back before he had time to cry 'Dieu merci!'"
He laughed;—Patoux laughed with him, and then went on,—
"I told thee of the miracle in my house, and of the boy the Cardinal found in the streets,—well!—these things have had their good effect in my own family. My two children, Henri and Babette—ah! What children! God be praised for them! As bright, as kind as the sunlight,—and their love for me and their mother is a great thing—a good thing, look you!—one cannot be sufficiently grateful for it. For nowadays, children too often despise their parents, which is bad luck to them in their after days; but ours, wild as they were a while ago, are all obedience and sweetness. I used often to wonder what would become of them as they grew up—for they were wilful and angry-tempered, and ofttimes cruel in speech—but I have no fear now. Henri works well at his lessons, and Babette too,—and there is something better than the learning of lessons about them,—something new and bright in their dispositions which makes us all happy. And this has come about since the Cardinal stayed with us; and also since the pretty boy was found outside the Cathedral!"
"That boy seems to have impressed thee more than the Cardinal himself!" said Midon—"but now I remember well—on the day the Abbe Vergniaud preached his last sermon, and was nearly shot dead by his own son, there was a rumour that his life had been saved by some boy who was an attendant on the Cardinal, and who interposed himself between the Abbe and the flying bullet,—that must have been the one you mean?"
"No doubt—no doubt!" said Patoux, nodding gravely—"There was something about him that seemed a sort of shield against evil—or at least, so said my wife,—and so say my children. Only the other day, my boy Henri—he is big and full of mischief as boys will be—was playing with two or three younger lads, and one of them like a little sneak, stole up behind him and gave him a blow with a stick, which broke in two with the force of the way the young rascal went to work with it. Now, thought I, there will be need for me to step out and stop this quarrel, for Henri will beat that miserable little wretch into a jelly! But nothing of the sort! My boy turned round with a bright laugh—picked up the two pieces of the stick and gave them back to the little coward with a civil bow "Hit in front next time!" he said. And the little wretch turned tail and began to boo-hoo in fine fashion—crying as if he had been hurt instead of Henri. But they are the best friends in the world now. I asked Henri about it afterwards, and he turned as red as an apple in the cheeks. 'I wanted to kill him, father,' he said,—'but I knew that the boy who was with Cardinal Bonpre would not have done it—and so I did not!' Now look you, for a rough little fellow such as Henri, that was a great victory over his passions—and there is no doubt the Cardinal's little foundling was the cause of his so managing himself."
Pierre Midon had nothing to say in answer,—the subject was getting beyond him, and he was a man who, when thought became difficult, gave up thinking altogether.
And while these two simple-minded worthies were thus talking and strolling together home through the streets of Paris, Cyrillon Vergniaud, having parted from the few friends who had paid him the respect of their attendance at his father's grave, was making his way towards the Champs Elysees in a meditative frame of mind, when his attention was suddenly caught and riveted by a placard set up in front of one of the newspaper kiosks at the corner of a boulevard, on which in great black letters, was the name "Angela Sovrani." His heart gave one great bound—then stood still—the streets of the city reeled round him, and he grew cold and sick. "Meurtre de la celebre Angela Sovrani!"
Hardly knowing what he was about, he bought the paper. The news was in a mere paragraph briefly stating that the celebrated artist had been found stabbed in her studio, and that up to the present there was no trace of the unknown assassin.