Part 48 (1/2)
He left M Kercadiou to think it over, and went to es in his toilet
”So that is why you have taken to wearing a sword,” said M de Kercadiou, as they cliuard one's self in these times”
”And do you mean to tell me that a man who lives by what is after all an honourable profession, a profession mainly supported by the nobility, can at the sa attorneys and low pa dissension and insubordination?”
”You forget that I a attorney myself, runted, and took snuff ”You say the academy flourishes?” he asked presently
”It does I have two assistant instructors I could employ a third It is hard work”
”That should mean that your circumstances are affluent”
”I have reason to be satisfied I have far more than I need”
”Then you'll be able to do your share in paying off this national debt,”
growled the nobleman, well content that--as he conceived it--some of the evil Andre-Louis had helped to sow should recoil upon hiastel M de Kercadiou, Andre-Louis gathered, but not the reason for it, disapproved ly of this visit But then Mada wo, whoastel was at present absent in Ger It was an indiscreet adastel was one of those intriguing emissaries who came and went between the Queen of France and her brother, the Ee drew up before a handso Saint-Denis, at the corner of the Rue Paradis, and they were ushered by a sleek servant into a little boudoir, all gilt and brocade, that opened upon a terrace above a garden that was a park inthe young person who had been reading to her, and careet her cousin Kercadiou
”I almost feared you would not keep your word,” she said ”It was unjust But then I hardly hoped that you would succeed in bringing hi welco allantry
”The memory of you, madame, is too deeply imprinted on my heart for any persuasions to have been necessary”
”Ah, the courtier!” said madame, and abandoned him her hand ”We are to have a little talk, Andre-Louis,” she inforuely ill at ease
They sat down, and for a while the conversation was of general matters, chiefly concerned, however, with Andre-Louis, his occupations and his views And all the while entle, wistful eyes, until again that sense of uneasiness began to pervade hiht here for some purpose deeper than that which had been avowed
At last, as if the thing were concerted--and the clumsy Lord of Gavrillac was the last man in the world to cover his tracks--his Godfather rose and, upon a pretext of desiring to survey the garden, sauntered through the s on to the terrace, over whose white stone balustrade the geraniu the foliage below
”Noe can talk more intimately,” said madame ”Come here, and sit beside me” She indicated the empty half of the settee she occupied
Andre-Louis went obediently, but a little unco a hand upon his arm, ”that you have behaved very ill, that your Godfather's resentment is very justly founded?”
”Madame, if I knew that, I should be theof men” And he explained himself, as he had explained himself on Sunday to his Godfather ”What I did, I did because it was the only means to my hand in a country in which justice was paralyzed by Privilege to make war upon an infamous scoundrel who had killed my best friend--a wanton, brutal act of murder, which there was no law to punish
And as if that were not enough--forgive me if I speak with the utmost frankness, madame--he afterwards debauched the woman I was to have ive me I know that it is horrible You perceive, perhaps, what I suffered, how I cauilty--the riot that began in the Feydau Theatre and afterwards enveloped the whole city of Nantes--was provoked by this”
”Who was she, this girl?”
It was like a woht, to fasten upon the unessential
”Oh, a theatre girl, a poor fool of whorets La Binet was her name I was a player at the time in her father's troupe That was after the Rennes business, when it was necessary to hide froallows' justice for unfortunates who are not 'born' This added wrong led me to provoke a riot in the theatre”