“Have you made yourself insupportable?” asked Eugénie. She really did not love her cousin, and under the appearance of teasing him, as is the way with young people, she told him some pretty plain truths as often as she could. Mr. Smithson was reading a newspaper. Hearing what Eugénie and Albert said, he looked up, and said to his nephew, in his usual grave tone:
“What has happened?”
“I have been dismissed from the school.”
“Impossible!” said Eugénie.
Albert was astonished at the persistency with which his cousin defended Louis. He felt his hatred redouble against the engineer.
“You may well think it impossible,” said he, in an insinuating tone.... “Really, if this gentleman has a right to figure in the school he has founded with my uncle’s aid, I, his nephew, and almost a child of the house, have a right to take a part in it also. But such is not the opinion of our imperious co-laborer. There is a certain routine about his instructions that I mildly criticised. For example, he tries, however awkward it may be, to give a religious turn to everything, which I, though a great friend to religion, find ridiculous.”
In this underhand way, Albert skilfully aroused his uncle’s anger and distrust. Mr. Smithson murmured to himself, with that voice of the soul inaudible to others: “I thought so: he is fanatical and ambitious. My nephew, fool as he is, has found it out, and has unmasked him! That is why the other has got rid of him.”
Albert partly guessed what was passing in his uncle’s mind, and saw he had made a good hit. He ended his recriminations in these terms: “The little advice of a humble nature I gave him; my course so different from his, and, I may say without vanity, better....”
Here Eugénie burst into a loud laugh.
“Eugénie,” said Mr. Smithson gravely, “what your cousin is saying merits attention. You are far too giddy this evening.”