Andre-Louis looked at him in silence for a long moment.
Then he laughed again. “Oh, you are fantastic,”
he said. “You are not real.”
He turned on his heel and strode to the door.
The action, and more the contempt of his look, laugh,
and words stung M. Binet to passion, drove out the
conciliatoriness of his mood.
“Fantastic, are we?” he cried, turning
to follow the departing Scaramouche with his little
eyes that now were inexpressibly evil. “Fantastic
that we should prefer the powerful protection of this
great nobleman to marriage with beggarly, nameless
bastard. Oh, we are fantastic!”
Andre-Louis turned, his hand upon the door-handle.
“No,” he said, “I was mistaken.
You are not fantastic. You are just vile —
both of you.” And he went out.
CONTRITION
Mlle. de Kercadiou walked with her aunt in the
bright morning sunshine of a Sunday in March on the
broad terrace of the Chateau de Sautron.
For one of her natural sweetness of disposition she
had been oddly irritable of late, manifesting signs
of a cynical worldliness, which convinced Mme.
de Sautron more than ever that her brother Quintin
had scandalously conducted the child’s education.
She appeared to be instructed in all the things of
which a girl is better ignorant, and ignorant of all
the things that a girl should know. That at
least was the point of view of Mme. de Sautron.
“Tell me, madame,” quoth Aline, “are
all men beasts?” Unlike her brother, Madame
la Comtesse was tall and majestically built.
In the days before her marriage with M. de Sautron,
ill-natured folk described her as the only man in
the family. She looked down now from her noble
height upon her little niece with startled eyes.
“Really, Aline, you have a trick of asking the
most disconcerting and improper questions.”
“Perhaps it is because I find life disconcerting
and improper.”
“Life? A young girl should not discuss
life.”
“Why not, since I am alive? You do not
suggest that it is an impropriety to be alive?”
“It is an impropriety for a young unmarried
girl to seek to know too much about life. As
for your absurd question about men, when I remind
you that man is the noblest work of God, perhaps you
will consider yourself answered.”
Mme. de Sautron did not invite a pursuance of
the subject. But Mlle. de Kercadiou’s
outrageous rearing had made her headstrong.
“That being so,” said she, “will
you tell me why they find such an overwhelming attraction
in the immodest of our sex?”
Madame stood still and raised shocked hands.
Then she looked down her handsome, high-bridged nose.
“Sometimes — often, in fact, my dear Aline
— you pass all understanding. I shall
write to Quintin that the sooner you are married the
better it will be for all.”
