[CHAPTER XXI]
DIALOGUE WITH A MASTER
Alas, our frailty is the cause, not we;
For such as we are made of, such we be.—Twelfth Night.
It was with a childish pleasure that for a whole hour Julien put the words together. As he came out of his room, he met his pupils with their mother. She took the letter with a simplicity and a courage whose calmness terrified him.
“Is the mouth-glue dry enough yet?” she asked him.
“And is this the woman who was so maddened by remorse?” he thought. “What are her plans at this moment?” He was too proud to ask her, but she had never perhaps pleased him more.
“If this turns out badly,” she added with the same coolness, “I shall be deprived of everything. Take charge of this, and bury it in some place of the mountain. It will perhaps one day be my only resource.”
She gave him a glass case in red morocco filled with gold and some diamonds.