"Because of that very identity of interest, I shall not obey you," rejoined the son. "Your honor is my honor. I propose to know whether the money I am living on is pure. At eleven o'clock to-morrow I shall be there. I hope you will be there too. But if you are not, I shall go in alone. Nothing on earth, you understand, nothing shall prevent my having an explanation with Monsieur de Claviers, unless—"
"Unless what?" queried Chaffin breathlessly. "Go on."
"Unless you tell me that your leaving his service was for a different reason, and what it was."
"I can't invent one," the father replied.
"Then I can't understand your objections to a step which, I tell you once more, I must take in order to put an end to an intolerable state of mind."
"Well!" said Chaffin, after a pause, "do it, since you no longer believe in your father; but remember this, that I will never forgive you."
An awkward and ill-timed attempt at paternal dignity, which lacked the accent, the expression, the gesture, in a word the inimitable and irresistible reality, which Pierre craved as he craved bread and water, air and light! Chaffin resorted to it, however, as a desperate effort to prevent that visit, the threat of which had sent a stream of fire running through his veins. What an evening and night he passed under the apprehension of that hour, which every minute brought nearer, when his shamefully wronged employer and his idolized son should be face to face!
The young man did not dine at home, in order to avoid meeting his father. The latter heard him come in about midnight. A mad temptation assailed him, as he heard that well-known step, to rise and go to him and confess everything. But no. Pierre's terrible words were still ringing in his ears: "I propose to know whether the money I am living on is pure." How could he bear to tell that boy, whose probity was so absolute, that that money was not pure, that the little fortune, by virtue of which he was pursuing his studies, almost without practising, was, in part, stolen! For that was really one of the motives that had led Chaffin into rascality: his passionate desire to assure his son Pierre immunity from his own laborious life was his revenge for his semi-menial position. He had imagined him physician to the hospitals, professor in the Faculty, member of the Académie de Medicine, perhaps of the Institute.
This excitation of his paternal love was due to the same malevolence, born of his abortive destiny, that filled him with implacable hatred of his noble and magnificent employer. That most excellent sentiments can exist in the same heart with evil sentiments, and criminal resolutions inspired by the latter justify themselves by the former, is a fact of every-day observation, as disconcerting as it is indisputable. It explains why the great legislators, who were also great psychologists, always strove to punish acts in themselves, without seeking the intent with which they were committed. The decadence of civic justice began with this search for the intent, which, in healthy societies, is left to religion to deal with. The Church can still find reasons for pardoning a Chaffin for his crimes, when human tribunals, taking cognizance of his case, owe him naught save the galleys.
"If he ever finds that out," said the guilty father to himself, in that vigil of anguish, "he will leave me. He will go away from the house. His mother and sister will insist on knowing, too. They will guess the truth. At any price, Pierre must remain in ignorance. But how?"