Part 45 (1/2)
”I see that you have come here to talk politics”
”Far from it I have come, if possible, to explain reat saying of Montaigne's If I could make you understand”
”You can't You'll never make me understand how you came to render yourself so odiously notorious in Brittany”
”Ah, not odiously,those that h that I cannot, will not believe”
”Yet it is true”
M de Kercadiou choked ”And you confess it? You dare to confess it?”
”What a man dares to do, he should dare to confess--unless he is a coward”
”Oh, and to be sure you were very brave, running away each ti coa riot in Nantes, and then running away again, to beco dishonest by the affluent look of you My God, man, I tell you that in these past two years I have hoped that you were dead, and you profoundly disappoint ether, and raised his shrill voice to call--”Benoit!” He strode away towards the fireplace, scarlet in the face, shaking with the passion into which he had worked hiiven you, as one who had paid for his evil, and his folly Living, I never can forgive you You have gone too far God alone knohere it will end
”Benoit, the door M Andre-Louis Moreau to the door!” The tone argued an irrevocable determination Pale and self-contained, but with a queer pain at his heart, Andre-Louis heard that dis hands half-raised as if he were about to expostulate with his master And then another voice, a crisp, boyish voice, cut in
”Uncle!” it cried, a world of indignation and surprise in its pitch, and then: ”Andre!” And this tiladness, certainly of welcome, was blended with the surprise that still remained
Both turned, half the room between the, open s, arrested there in the act of entering froarden, Aline in a h without any of the tricolour embellishments that were so commonly to be seen upon the mouth twisted into a queer smile Into hisHe saw hination upon the pavee as it receded down the Avenue de Gigan
She was cohtened colour in her cheeks, a smile of welcome on her lips He bowed low and kissed her hand in silence
Then with a glance and a gesture she dismissed Benoit, and in her iainst that harsh dismissal which she had overheard
”Uncle,” she said, leaving Andre and crossing to M de Kercadiou, ”youof peevishness to overwhelm all your affection for Andre!”
”I have no affection for hio to the devil; and please observe that I don't permit you to interfere”
”But if he confesses that he has done wrong”
”He confesses nothing of the kind He cohts of Man He proclaims himself unrepentant He announces himself with pride to have been, as all Brittany says, the scoundrel who hid himself under the sobriquet of Omnes Omnibus Is that to be condoned?”
She turned to look at Andre across the wide space that now separated them
”But is this really so? Don't you repent, Andre--now that you see all the harm that has co to him to say that he repented, to make his peace with his Godfather For a e unworthy, he answered truthfully, though the pain he was suffering rang in his voice
”To confess repentance,” he said slowly, ”would be to confess to a monstrous crime Don't you see that? Oh, monsieur, have patience with me; let me explain myself a little You say that I a of all this that has happened My exhortations of the people at Rennes and twice afterwards at Nantes are said to have had their share in what followed there It may be so It would be beyond my power positively to deny it Revolution followed and bloodshed More nition that I have done wrong
How shall I say that I have done wrong, and thus take a share of the responsibility for all that blood upon my soul? I will be quite frank with you to show you how far, indeed, I aainst all my convictions at the tiainst the murderer of Philippe de Vilined could make the evil done recoil upon the hand that did it, and those other hands that had the power but not the spirit to punish Since then I have co, and that Philippe de Vilht
”You must realize, monsieur, that it is with sincerest thankfulness that I find I have done nothing calling for repentance; that, on the contrary, when France is given the inestimable boon of a constitution, as will shortly happen, Iabout the conditions that have made this possible”
There was a pause M de Kercadiou's face turned from pink to purple