“Poor boy,” she said tenderly. “Only a woman’s heart can realize what you must have suffered; and because of that I can so readily forgive you. But now...”
“Ah, but you don’t understand, madame. If to-day I thought that I had none but personal grounds for having lent a hand in the holy work of abolishing Privilege, I think I should cut my throat. My true justification lies in the insincerity of those who intended that the convocation of the States General should be a sham, mere dust in the eyes of the nation.”
“Was it not, perhaps, wise to have been insincere in such a matter?”
He looked at her blankly.
“Can it ever be wise, madame, to be insincere?”
“Oh, indeed it can; believe me, who am twice your age, and know my world.”
“I should say, madame, that nothing is wise that complicates existence; and I know of nothing that so complicates it as insincerity. Consider a moment the complications that have arisen out of this.”
“But surely, Andre-Louis, your views have not been so perverted that you do not see that a governing class is a necessity in any country?”
“Why, of course. But not necessarily a hereditary one.”
“What else?”