"What! Have you gone to the trouble of having me legitimatized?" with
a terrible laugh.
"I shall never lose my temper again," retorted the father, a ghost of a
smile parting his thin lips. "Let us put aside antagonism for the
present. Let us analyze my action. Why should I go to the trouble of
having your title adjusted by parliamentary law? I am too old for
Paris; Paris shall see me no more. Am I a man to run after
sentimentality? You will scarce accuse me of that weakness. Were you
aught but what you are, I should be dining in Rochelle, with all my
accustomed comforts. You are successor to my titles. Believe me or
not, as to that I am totally indifferent. I am doing what my sense of
justice demands. That is sufficient for me. The night of the day you
took passage on the Saint Laurent I called to the hôtel those whilom
friends of yours and charged them on the pain of death to stop a
further spread to your madness. Scarce a dozen in Rochelle know; Paris
is wholly ignorant. Your revenues in the Cévennes are accumulating.
Return to France, or remain here to become . . . great and respected;
that is no concern of mine. To tell you these facts I have crossed the
Atlantic. There can be no maudlin sentiment between you and me; there
have been too many harsh words. That is all I have to say. Digest it
well."
Silence. A breeze, blowing in through a window, stirred the flames of
the candles, and their lines of black smoke wavered horizontally
through the air. Monsieur le Marquis waited for the outpouring of
thanks, the protestations of joy, the bending of this proud and haughty
spirit. While waiting he did not look at his son; rather he busied
himself with the stained ruffles of his sleeve. The pause grew. It
was so long that the marquis was compelled finally to look up. In his
cabinet at Périgny he had a small bronze statue of the goddess Ate: the
scowling eyes, the bent brows, the widened nostrils, the half-visible
row of teeth, all these he saw in the face towering above him.
"So that is all you have to say? How easily and complacently you say
it! 'Monsieur, the honor I robbed you of I bring back. It is
worthless, either to you or to me, it is true. Nevertheless, thank me
and bid me be gone!' And that is all you have to say!"
The marquis sat back in his chair, thunderstruck.
"It is nothing, then," went on the son, leaning across the table and
speaking in those thin tones of one who represses fury; "it is nothing
that men have laughed behind my back, insulted me to my face? It is
nothing to have trampled on my illusions and bittered the cup of life?
It is nothing that I have suffered for three months as they in hell
suffer for eternity? It is nothing that my trust in humanity is gone?
All these things are inconsiderable! In a moment of anger you told me
this unholy lie, without cause, without definite purpose, without
justice, carelessly, as a pastime?"