Romain sat down carefully in Jean’s only armchair, and regarded his nephew, who clung to his music-stool as if it was a banner, with tolerant amusement.
“My poor boy,” he began, “all this is very sad, isn’t it? Shall we smoke?”
Jean felt a renewed pang as his uncle drew out his gold monogrammed cigarette-case and passed it to him. He was determined to resist Romain to the death, but he wished he had not to resist him to the point of being laughed at!
“I’ve seen the little girl,” Romain continued, leaning back as luxuriously as he could and letting his eyes wander over the embroidery mats, the religious pictures, and all Margot’s ambitious attempts at embellishments. “She’s charming, my dear boy, charming! The upper lip is too long, the figure a little too straight, I should imagine that after forty she might have to take precautions against a moustache; but where there is freshness and bloom it does not do to look too critically into these things. Yes, on the whole, I congratulate you!”
“I don’t know what you mean, mon oncle,” said Jean impatiently. “There is nothing to congratulate me upon, I assure you! If you suppose that Mademoiselle Selba——”
Romain waved his hand gently in the air and half closed his eyes.
“Ah, yes, yes!” he said. “Of course, you take the proper attitude; only between ourselves, you know, Jean, a fille de théâtre is one thing and a femme du monde is quite another; one alters one’s tone accordingly. But I have come to speak seriously to you. You have made a fatal mistake. I was really distressed to hear of it. A big folly has about it something that attracts the eye—the world will forgive much for the sake of an adventure; but a little folly—an obscure intrigue with an unknown singer—my dear Jean, it is not a sin, it is a muddle! When I first heard of your inconceivable good fortune in a certain quarter, I was delighted, a little amused too at your precipitate good fortune—the luck of the first throw! but grateful to the good Liane. ‘Enfin,’ I said, ‘this begins his education, he is at the height of felicity; work below his intelligence and happiness beyond his means! what farther can a man desire?’ But, my good Jean, you lack discrimination. This is a very grave fault. Let me implore you to be careful! I used often to have this very question out with your father. ‘Let me tell you,’ he used to say, ‘that with me, it is all or nothing.’ I regretted it, for those who take that tone invariably begin with all and end with nothing. Violence is a mistake, it destroys the senses. In pleasure, my dear boy, as in delicate health, a little and often is the best possible prescription. Now this kind of thing,” said Romain, fingering a blue bead mat, “this kind of thing is very extreme; it leads you nowhere.”
“I must protest, Uncle, once and for all,” said Jean firmly, “that I am not here for my pleasure, and that my connection with Mademoiselle is wholly innocent. I stay here with her and her mother because it happens to be the only possible means of carrying on my career; but music is absolutely the only tie between us.”
“Your career?” said Romain, and he looked at the piano, he looked at Jean, and he looked at the rain on the window-pane. “If what you tell me is true,” he added after a significant pause, “it is very much more regrettable than anything I had supposed. A mistaken passion can be rectified, but a mistaken virtue is apt to remain upon one’s hands. Pray do not lose your temper; I take your word for it, of course. It confirms me in my opinion of innocence. It is a quality which damps the imagination. It reminds me of a wet day I once spent in the country. Well, my dear Jean, you have, I take it, innocence and your career and six flights of stairs to climb daily; pray, does it amuse you, this combination?”
Jean had prepared himself, or thought he had, for the shafts of his uncle’s wit, but he was hardly prepared for the unconscionable fit of laughter in which Romain proceeded to indulge. He felt bitterly exposed to the crudity of his inexperience. Romain did not dislike his nephew, but he resented him a little; in the first place, he felt that he ought to have done more for Jean, and in the second place, he envied him his youth with that deep resentment of a man who has outlived his own primary emotions without having found anything to replace them. Jean blushed hotly, but he managed to keep his temper.