"What was he to do? poor Montbreton has four children, and none too much money," said M. Mauperin with a sigh, as he folded up the newspaper in which he had just been reading the official appointments and put it at some distance from him on the table.

"Yes, people always say that. As soon as any one ever does anything mean, people always say 'He has children.' One would think that in society people only had children for the sake of that—for the sake of being able to beg, and to do a lot of mean things. It's just as though the fact of being the father of a family gave you the right to be a scoundrel."

"Come, come, RenÉe," M. Mauperin began.

"No, it's quite true. I only know two kinds of people: the straightforward, honest ones; and then the others. Four children! But that only ought to serve as an excuse for a father when he steals a loaf. MÈre Gigogne would have had the right to poison hers according to that, then. I'm sure Denoisel thinks as I do."

"I? Not at all; indeed I don't! I vote for indulgence in favour of married folks—fathers of families. I should like to see people more charitable, too, towards any one who has a vice—a vice which may be rather ruinous, but which one cannot give up. As to the others, those who have nothing to use their money for, no vice, no wife, no children, and who sell themselves, ruin themselves, bow down, humiliate, enrich, and degrade themselves—ah! I'd give all such over to you willingly."

"I'm not going to talk to you," said RenÉe in a piqued tone. "Anyhow, papa," she went on, "I cannot understand how it is that it does not make you indignant, you who have always sacrificed everything to your opinions. It's disgusting what he has done, and that's the long and short of it."

"I do not say that it isn't; but you get so excited, child, you get so excited."

"I should think so. Yes, I do get excited—and enough to make me, too. Only fancy, a man who owed everything to the other government, and who said everything bad he could about the present one; and now he joins this one. Why, he's a wretch!—your friend, Montbreton—a wretch!"

"Ah! my dear child, it's very easy to say that. When you have had a little more experience of life you will be more indulgent. One has to be more merciful. You are young."

"No, it's something I've inherited, this is. I'm your daughter, and there's too much of you in me, that's what it is. I shall never be able to swallow things that disgust me. It's the way I'm made—how can I help it? Every time I see any one I know—or even any one I don't know—fail in what you men call points of honour, well, I can't help it at all, but it has the same effect on me as the sight of a toad. I have such a horror of it, and it disgusts me so, that I want to step on it. Come now, do you call a man honourable because he takes care to only do abominable things for which he can't be tried in the law courts? Do you call a man honourable when he has done something for which he must blush when he is alone? Is a man honourable when he has done things for which no one can reproach him and for which he cannot be punished, but which tarnish his conscience? I think there are things that are lower and viler than cheating at the card-table; and the indulgence with which society looks on makes me feel as though society is an accomplice, and I think it is perfectly revolting. There are things that are so disloyal, so dishonest, that when I think of them it makes me quite merciful towards out-and-out scoundrels. You see they do risk something; their life is at stake and their liberty. They go in for things prepared to win or lose: they don't put gloves on to do their infamous deeds. I like that better; it's not so cowardly, anyhow!"

RenÉe was seated on a sofa at the far side of the drawing-room. Her arms were folded, her hands feverish, and her whole body quivering with emotion. She spoke in jerks, and her voice vibrated with the wrath she felt in her very soul. Her eyes looked like fire lighting up her face, which was in the shade.

"And very interesting, too, he is," she continued, "your M. de Montbreton. He has an income of six hundred or six hundred and fifty pounds. If he did not pay quite such a high house-rent, and if his daughters had not always had their dresses made by Mme. Carpentier——"

"Ah, this requires consideration," put in Denoisel. "A man who has more than two hundred a year, if a bachelor, and more than four hundred if married, can perfectly well remain faithful to a government which is no longer in power. His means allow him to regret——"

"And he will expect you to esteem him, to shake hands with him, and raise your hat to him as usual," continued RenÉe. "No, it is rather too much! I hope when he comes here, papa—well, I shall promptly go straight out of the room."

"Will you have a glass of water, RenÉe?" asked M. Mauperin, smiling; "you know orators always do. You were really fine just then. Such eloquence—it flowed like a brook."

"Yes, make fun of me by all means. You know I get carried away, as you tell me. And your Montbreton—but how silly I am, to be sure. He doesn't belong to us, this man, does he? Oh, if it were one of my family who had done such a thing, such a dishonourable thing, such a——"

She stopped short for a second, and then began again:

"I think," she said, speaking with an effort, as though the tears were coming into her eyes, "I think I could never love him again. Yes, it seems to me as though my heart would be perfectly hard as far as he was concerned."

"Good! this is quite touching. We had the young orator just now, and at present it is the little girl's turn. You'd do better to come and look at this caricature album that Davarande has sent your mother."

"Ah yes, let's look at that," said RenÉe, going quickly across to her father and leaning on his shoulder as he turned over the leaves. She glanced at two or three pages and then looked away.

"There, I've had enough of them, thank you. Goodness, how can people enjoy making things ugly—uglier than nature? What a queer idea. Now in art, in books, and in everything, I'm for all that is beautiful, and not for what is ugly. Then, too, I don't think caricatures are amusing. It's the same with hunchbacks—it never makes me laugh to see a hunchback. Do you like caricatures, Denoisel?"

"Do I? No, they make me want to howl. Yes, it is a kind of comical thing that hurts me," answered Denoisel, picking up a Review that was next the album. "Caricatures are like petrified jokes to me. I can never see one on a table without thinking of a lot of dismal things, such as the wit of the Directory, Carle Vernet's drawings, and the gaiety of middle-class society."

"Thank you," said M. Mauperin laughing, "and in addition to that you are cutting my Revue des Deux Mondes with a match. How hopeless he is, to be sure, Denoisel."

"Do you want a knife, Denoisel?" asked RenÉe, plunging her hand into her pockets and pulling out a whole collection of things, which she threw on the table.

"By Jove!" exclaimed Denoisel, "why, you have a regular museum in your pockets. You'd have enough for a whole sale at the auction-rooms. What in the world are all those things?"

"Presents from a certain person, and they go about with me everywhere. There's the knife for you," and RenÉe showed it to her father before passing it to Denoisel. "Do you remember where you bought it for me?" she asked. "It was at Langres once when we had stopped for a fresh horse; oh, it's a very old one. This one," she continued, picking up another, "you brought me from Nogent. It has a silver blade, if you please; I gave you a halfpenny for it, do you remember?"

"Ah, if we are to begin making inventories!" said M. Mauperin laughing.

"And what's in that?" asked Denoisel, pointing to a little worn-out pocket-book stuffed full of papers, the dirty crumpled edges of which could be seen at each end.

"That? Oh, those are my secrets," and, picking up all the things she had thrown on the table, she put them quickly back in her pocket with the little book. The next minute, with a burst of laughter and diving once more into her pockets, she pulled the book out again, opened the flap, and scattered all the little papers on the table in front of Denoisel, and without opening them proceeded to explain what they were. "There, this is a prescription that was given for papa when he was ill. That's a song he composed for me two years ago for my birthday——"

"There, that's enough! Pack up your relics; put all that out of sight," said M. Mauperin, sweeping all the little papers from him just as the door opened and M. Dardouillet entered.

"Oh, you've mixed them all up for me!" exclaimed RenÉe, looking annoyed as she put them back in her pocket-book.