Part 68 (2/2)
”My poor Andre!”
”You describe , understand nothing It is not a calamitous condition until it is realized Then” He threw out his arain His face she observed was very drawn and haggard
She paced with hieraniureen and scarlet
”Have you decided what you are going to do?” she asked him
”I have decided that I have no choice I, too, rate I am lucky to be able to do so, lucky to have found no one amid yesterday's chaos in Paris to whoht no longer be armed with these” He drew from his pocket the powerful passport of the Co upon all Frenchht require, and warning those whohim that they did so at their own peril He spread it before her ”With this I conduct you all safely to the frontier Over the frontier M de Kercadiou and Mastel will have to conduct me; and then we shall be quits”
”Quits?” quoth she ”But you will be unable to return!”
”You conceive, of course, erness to do so My child, in a day or two there will be enquiries It will be asked what has becos will transpire Then the hunt will start But by then we shall be well upon our ell ahead of any possible pursuit You don't iovern that any government remains to which to explain it?”
”You mean that you will sacrifice your future, this career upon which you have embarked?” It took her breath away
”In the pass to which things have come there is no career for me down there--at least no honest one And I hope you do not think that I could be dishonest It is the day of the Dantons, and the Marats, the day of the rabble The reins of government will be tossed to the populace, or else the populace, drunk with the conceit hich the Dantons and the Marats have filled it, will seize the reins by force Chaos overnment of the whole by its lowest parts It cannot endure, because unless a nation is ruled by its best eleht you were a republican,” said she
”Why, so I a like one I desire a society which selects its rulers froht of any class or corporation to usurp the governy, the bourgeoisie, or the proletariat For government by any one class is fatal to the welfare of the whole Two years ago our ideal seemed to have been realized The monopoly of power had been taken fro and too unjustly by the hollow right of heredity It had been distributed as evenly as hout the State, and if men had only paused there, all would have been well But our ioaded us on by their very opposition, and the result is the horror of which yesterday you saw no s No, no,” he ended ”Careers there may be for venal place-seekers, for opportunists; but none for a o I o? What will you do?”
”Oh, so Consider that in four years I have been lawyer, politician, swordsman, and buffoon--especially the latter There is always a place in the world for Scaramouche Besides, do you know that unlike Scaramouche I have been oddly provident? I ariculture ht suit me It is a meditative occupation; and when all is said, I am not a man of action I haven't the qualities for the part”
She looked up into his face, and there was a wistful smile in her deep blue eyes
”Is there any part for which you have not the qualities, I wonder?”
”Do you really? Yet you cannot say that I have made a success of any of those which I have played I have always ended by running away I a-academy, which is likely to becoone into politics, fro in which I really excel That, too, is an attribute of Scara yourself?” she wondered
”Because I recognize myself for part of this mad world, I suppose You wouldn't have me take it seriously? I should loseed him ”You are insincere, you know”
”Of course I am Do you expect sincerity in man when hypocrisy is the very keynote of human nature? We are nurtured on it; we are schooled in it, we live by it; and we rarely realize it You have seen it ra the past four years--cant and hypocrisy on the lips of the revolutionaries, cant and hypocrisy on the lips of the upholders of the old regiotten chaos And I who criticize it all on this beautiful God-givenam the rankest and most contemptible hypocrite of all
It was this--the realization of this truth kept ht For two years I have persecuted by every means in my power M de La Tour d'Azyr”
He paused before uttering the na how to speak of him
”And in those two years I have deceivedenius of his life, and hinized the justice of this It ht, and because of that it is probable that even had he not killed Philippe de Vils would still have been the same Indeed, to-day I know that they must have been That is why I callhypocrite”
”But why, Andre?”