The Republican looked at him, his inscrutable eyes betraying no surprise. "What are they?" he asked, his tone almost phlegmatic.
"The man Baudouin has been here, addressing himself so rudely to your daughter that I felt myself obliged to—to interfere."
"That is unlucky."
"It may be that he has your confidence," the young Vicomte continued, "but, from the way in which he spoke of you, I doubt if you have his. He seemed to me—a dangerous man, M. Baudouin."
"Did he use threats?" the Republican asked, a slight shade of anxiety in his tone.
The Vicomte nodded.
"Did he mention any names?" M. Mirande continued, looking sharply at his watch.
"Yes. Those of Carnot, Barrère—and I think, Tallien."
"Ah!" For a moment M. Mirande's impulse seemed to be to leave the room; to leave it hurriedly, to go back perhaps whence he had come. But he thought better of it, and after a pause he continued, "Had you not something else to tell me?"
"I had," the young man answered, betraying, by his agitation, that he had now come to the real purpose for which he had sought the interview. "I wish to leave, M. Mirande. I wish to leave your house at once. I do not know," he continued hurriedly, before the elder man could utter the dry retort which was on his lips, "whether you had it in your mind to try me by leaving me with your daughter, or whether I have only my own weakness to thank. But I must go. I am ashamed of myself, I hate myself for it; but I cannot be with her and not feel what I ought not to feel. Understand me," the young man continued, his cheeks pale; "it is not by reason of any charm of hers, but because she is so like—so like my wife—because she seems a dozen times a day to be my wife, that my memory is unfaithful to Corinne—that I dare not remain here another day!"