"You are not to take her with you—of what are you thinking? That man has already seen the child, and would recognize her at once."
"You surely cannot mean that I am to desert my daughter?"
"Don't you think Amélie will be in safe hands if you leave her in my care?" asked De Fervlans, with a glance that would have made any one who had not heard his words believe he was making a declaration of love. "Besides, it will not be the first time you leave her to the care of another."
"That is true," sighed the countess; "I ought to be accustomed to parting with her. Have not I trusted her to the care of a police spy? and all for my own advantage! Oh, what a wretched profession I have chosen for myself and my child!"
"A profession that yields a handsome income, madame," supplemented the marquis, a trifle sharply. "You ought not to complain. Surely the régime is not to blame that you married a roué, who squandered your fortune, and then was killed in a duel about a rope-dancer, leaving you a clever little daughter and a half-million of debts! What else could you have done to have earned a living for yourself and child?"
"I might have sent the child to a foundling asylum, and sought employment for myself in the gobelin factory. It would have been better had I done so!"
"I doubt it, countess. The path of virtue is only for those women who—have large feet! You are too fairy-like, and would have found the way too rough. It is much better, believe me, to serve the state. What would you? Is there not a comforting word due to the conscience of the soldier who has killed a fellow-being in the interest of his country? Don't you suppose his heart aches when he looks upon the death-struggles of the man he has killed without having a personal grudge against him? We are all soldiers of the state. When we assault an enemy, we do not inquire if we hurt him; we kill him! and the safety of our fatherland hallows the deed."
"But that which we are doing is immoral," interposed the countess.
"And that which our enemy is doing is not immoral, I presume? Are not their beautiful women, their polished courtiers, acting as spies in our salons? We are only using their own weapons against them."
"That may be; but it was a repulsive thought that prompted the using of children as instruments in this deadly game."