“I don’t know that I expected to be amused,” he said. “Of course, it’s all ugly enough, and hard enough too, perhaps, but I’m very keen about my work, Uncle Romain.”
“Yes,” said Romain. “So one gathers, and may one ask, do you live on that appetite without satisfying any other?”
Jean hesitated. To tell the truth, he hardly knew what he did live on. He had three pupils beside Margot—a hairdresser’s assistant and two extremely stupid young women, the daughters of the friend of Margot’s late father. These lessons appeared to pay for his board, which was incredibly small, but Margot said that it was really quite as cheap to feed three people as two.
“I have made a small beginning,” he said, looking down at his boots. They shone beautifully, almost as beautifully as Romain’s; for the first time it suddenly flashed into his mind to wonder who had cleaned them.
“I don’t know that, if I were in your place,” said his uncle thoughtfully, “I should care to have that little one provide for me. Perhaps I am hardly the person to point this out to you, but at least I gave Marie a fair equivalent. One can marry a rich woman—there isn’t that possibility in your case!”
Jean sprang to his feet as if Romain had shot him—indeed, for the moment he wished he had; the thought that shook him was an unbearable agony, it had struck straight at his pride! Margot provide for him?
“Mon oncle!” he said, stammering with rage and terror, “you make it impossible for me to answer you, for there is only one answer I can give to such a suggestion.”
“One answer, my dear boy?” said Romain coolly. “There are at least a hundred! However, I assure you I don’t want any of them. It is a pity to take this tragic note. If my suggestion is not true—all the better; but let us admit for the moment that it is true, all may re-arrange itself. I have in my mind a little plan that offers you a way of escape. I have talked it over with your aunt, and I have at last won her consent. It was not altogether an easy thing to do, for I foresaw that it might include a small sum of money to your little friend here—one must free you from obligations in that quarter! And your aunt—like the good woman that she is—does not enter readily into a man’s obligations to other women. However, I pointed out to her that in the long run you would be in a position to repay her handsomely, and really, my dear Jean, it only depends on yourself how soon!”
Jean leaned forward eagerly; his uncle’s words gave him a sense of escape from the shame that was burning at his heart. He could pay Margot back! And he thought that money could do it!
“You remember that night you dined with us?” Romain continued lightly. “Your aunt sent you in with a rich American. You were shy then, and I was afraid you would not be a success with women. It appears, however, that I was mistaken. Now, this American is very rich and consumed with a desire to become one of us. I don’t know who her people were; in America, I take it, there are no people, only parents. Your aunt has pointed out to the girl that young unmarried women entirely unsupported by suitable relations do not find an entrée into the best French houses, and that there is one way, and only one, of her arriving at her purpose. She must, you perceive, naturally enough, marry one of us. Do not be startled, my dear Jean, and above all do not be precipitate. I daresay you wonder what the fair Pauline should see in you. To tell the truth, I fancy she does not see very much, but you have a certain value—you are my nephew, you have a good old name, and (for these Americans are so like children) it appears that your little title is not indifferent to her, and then there is your aunt. The poor girl considers your aunt to be the ideal French grande dame. They have such an infallible instinct, these young persons, for breeding and the right ton. I have succeeded in making little histories up about you. She has become interested; like all people of cold natures and wooden virtues, she is immensely attracted by what she considers, in her charming elementary manner, wickedness. Doubtless you will be as surprised as I am to hear of your poor little affairs called by so fine a name. Big names and little facts suit ces gens-là; they have no amusements, you know, except their dollars and their religions. Fortunately for them, perhaps, they have a great many of both.