“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?”

“Not as a pastime, not carelessly; rather with a definite purpose, to bring you to your senses.  You were becoming an insolent drunkard.”

The chevalier stretched out a hand.  “We have threshed that subject well.  We will not recall it.”

“Very well.”  The marquis’s anger was close to the surface.  This was his reward for what he understood to be a tremendous personal sacrifice!  He had come three thousand miles to make a restitution only to receive covert curses for his pains!  “But I beg of you not to repeat that extravagant play-acting.  This glass belongs to Monsieur de Lauson, and it might cost you dear.”

“Is your heart made of stone or of steel that you think you can undo what you have done?  Can I believe you?  How am I to tell that you are not doubling on the lie?  Is not all this because you are afraid to die without succession, the fear that men will laugh?”

“I am not afraid of anything,” sharply; “not even of ridicule.”

“Well, Monsieur le Marquis, neither am I. You have wasted your time.”

“So I perceive,” sourly.  “A letter would have been more to the purpose.”

“It would indeed.  It is the sight of you, Monsieur, that rouses fury and unbelief.  We ought never to meet again.”

“I will go at once,” making a movement to rise.

“Wait till I have done.  You will do well to listen, as I swear to God I shall never address a word to you again.  Your death-bed shall be no more to me than my heart has been to you.  Ah, could I but find a way to wring your heart as you have wrung mine!  You have wasted your time.  I shall never resume my title, if indeed I have one; I shall never return to France.  Do as you please with my estates.  There is an abyss between us; you can never cross it, and I shall never make the attempt.”

“Supposing I had a heart,” quietly; “how would you go about to wring it?”

“There are easier riddles, Monsieur.  If you waked to the sense of what it is to love, waked as a sleeping volcano wakes, and I knew the object of this love, it is possible that I might find a way to wring your heart.  But I refuse to concern myself with such ridiculous impossibilities.”