ave prospered since. In that, monsieur, I differ from the
ordinary prodigal,  who returns  only  when he needs  assistance.  I  return
solely because  I  love you, monsieur - to tell you so.  I  have come at the
very  first  moment  after  hearing  of  your  presence  here." He advanced.
"Monsieur my godfather!" he said, and held out his hand.
     But M. de Kercadiou remained unbending, wrapped in his cold dignity and
resentment.
     "Whatever tribulations you may  have  suffered or consider that you may
have suffered, they are far less than your disgraceful conduct deserved, and
I observe that  they have nothing  abated your impudence. You think that you
have but to come here and say, 'Monsieur my godfather!' and everything is to
be forgiven and  forgotten. That is your error. You have committed too great
a wrong; you  have offended against everything  by which I hold, and against
myself personally, by your betrayal of my trust in you. You are one of those
unspeakable scoundrels who are responsible for this revolution."
     "Alas, monsieur,  I  see that  you share  the  common  delusion.  These
unspeakable scoundrels  but  demanded  a constitution, as was promised  them
from the throne. They were not to  know that  the promise  was insincere, or
that its fulfilment would be baulked by the privileged  orders. The men  who
have  precipitated  this  revolution,  monsieur,  are  the  nobles  and  the
prelates."
     "You dare - and  at such a time as this - stand there and tell  me such
abominable  lies! You dare to say that  the nobles have made the revolution,
when scores of them, following  the example of  M. le  Duc d'Aiguillon, have
flung their privileges,  even their title-deeds, into the lap of the people!
Or perhaps you deny it?"
     "Oh, no. Having wantonly set fire  to their  house, they now try to put
it out by throwing  water on  it; and  where they fail  they put  the entire
blame on the flames."
     "I see that you have come here to talk politics."
     "Far from  it.  I  have  come,  if  possible,  to  explain  myself.  To
understand is always to forgive. That is a great 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, monsieur!"
     "Certainly,  odiously - among those that matter.  It is  said even that
you were Omnes Omnibus, though 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  time after
you  had done the  mischief, turning comedian to hide  yourself, doing  more
mischief as a comedian, provoking a riot  in  Nantes, and then  running away
again, to become  God knows  what - something 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 me  that you are not!" He
beat his  hands together, 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 himself. "Dead,  I might have forgiven 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 knows where 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 dismissal, saw Benoit's white, scared
face and shaking 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 time  a note  almost of gladness,  certainly of
welcome, was blended with the surprise that still remained.
     Both turned, half the room between them at the moment, and beheld Aline
in one of the long, open windows, arrested there in the act of entering from
the garden, Aline in a milk-maid  bonnet of the latest mode, though  without
any of  the tricolour  embellishments that were  so commonly to be seen upon
them.
     The thin lips of Andre's long mouth  twisted into a  queer  smile. Into
his mind had flashed the memory of their last parting. He saw himself again,
standing burning with indignation upon the pavement of Nantes, looking after
her carriage as it receded down the Avenue de Gigan.
     She was  coming  towards  him now with outstretched hands, a heightened
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
imperious fashion constituted herself Andre's advocate  against  that  harsh
dismissal which she had overheard.
     "Uncle," she said, leaving Andre and crossing to M. de Kercadiou,  "you
make me ashamed of you! To  allow a feeling of peevishness to  overwhelm all
your affection for Andre!"
     "I have no affection for him. I had once. He chose to extinguish it. He
can  go  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 comes here to argue with me about
these infernal Rights 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 come?"
     It  was  a clear  invitation to him, a  pleading  to him to say that he
repented, to make his peace with his godfather. For a moment it almost moved
him. Then,  considering  the subterfuge  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 am  in part responsible for
something 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 may  yet come.  To repent
implies a recognition 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
am from repentance. What I did, I actually did against all my convictions at
the  time.  Because  there was no justice  in  France  to  move against  the
murderer of  Philippe  de Vilmorin, I moved in the only way that  I imagined
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
come  to see that I was wrong, and  that Philippe  de Vilmorin and those who
thought with him were in the right.
     "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, I may take pride  in having played my  part in bringing
about the conditions that have made this possible."
     There was a pause. M. de Kercadiou's face turned from pink to purple.
     "You have quite finished?" he said harshly.
     "If you have understood me, monsieur."
     "Oh, I have understood you, and... and I beg that you will go."
     Andre-Louis shrugged his shoulders and hung his head. He had come there
so  joyously,  in  such yearning,  merely to receive a final  dismissal.  He
looked at Aline. Her face was pale and troubled; but her  wit failed to show
her how she could  come to his  assistance. His excessive honesty  had burnt
all his boats.
     "Very well, monsieur. Yet this I would ask  you to remember after  I am
gone. I have not come to you as one seeking assistance, as one driven to you
by need. I am no returning prodigal,  as I have said. I am one  who, needing
nothing, asking nothing, master of his own destinies, has come to you driven
by  affection only, urged by  the love and gratitude  he bears  you and will
continue to bear you."
     "Ah, yes!" cried Aline,  turning now to her uncle. Here at least was an
argument in Andre's favour, thought she. "That is true. Surely that..."
     Inarticulately he hissed her into silence, exasperated.
     "Hereafter perhaps  that  will  help you to think  of  me more  kindly,
monsieur.
     "I see no occasion, sir, to think  of you at all. Again, I beg that you
will go."
     Andre-Louis looked at Aline an instant, as if still hesitating.
     She answered him by a glance at her furious uncle, a faint shrug, and a
lift of the eyebrows, dejection the while in her countenance.
     It was as if she said: "You see his mood. There is nothing to be done."
     He bowed with that singular  grace  the fencing-room had  given him and
went out by the door.
     "Oh, it is cruel!" cried Aline, in a stifled voice, her hands clenched,
and she sprang to the window.
     "Aline!" her uncle's voice arrested her. "Where are you going?"
     "But we do not know where he is to be found."
     "Who wants to find the scoundrel?"
     "We may never see him again."
     "That is most fervently to be desired."
     Aline said "Ouf!" and went out by the window.
     He called after her, imperiously commanding her return. But Aline
     - dutiful child  - closed her ears lest she  must disobey him, and sped
light-footed across the lawn to  the avenue there to intercept the departing
Andre-Louis.
     As he came forth wrapped in gloom, she stepped from the bordering trees
into his path.
     "Aline!" he cried, joyously almost.
     "I did not want you to go like this. I couldn't let you,  she explained
herself.  "I know  him  better than you  do, and I know that his great  soft
heart will presently  melt. He  will be filled with regret. He will  want to
send for you, and he will not know where to send."
     "You think that?"
     "Oh,  I  know  it!  You arrive  in a  bad  moment.  He  is  peevish and
cross-grained, poor man, since he came here. These soft surroundings are all
so strange to him. He wearies himself away from  his beloved  Gavrillac, his
hunting and tillage,  and  the truth is that  in his  mind  he very  largely
blames you for what has happened
     - for the necessity, or at least, the wisdom, of this change. Brittany,
you must  know, was  becoming  too  unsafe.  The chateau of La  Tour d'Azyr,
amongst others,  was  burnt to the ground some  months ago. At  any  moment,
given a fresh excitement, it may be the  turn of Gavrillac. And for this and
his present  discomfort he blames you  and  your  friends. But  he will come
round presently.  He will be sorry  that  he sent you away like this - for I
know that he loves you, Andre, in spite of all. I shall reason with him when
the time comes. And then we shall want to know where to find you."
     "At number 13, Rue  du Hasard.  The number is unlucky, the name of  the
street appropriate. Therefore both are easy to remember."
     She nodded. "I will walk with you to  the gates." And side by  side now
they proceeded at a leisurely pace down the long avenue in the June sunshine
dappled by the shadows of the bordering trees. "You are looking well, Andre;
and  do you know  that you have changed a  deal?  I am glad  that  you  have
prospered." And then,  abruptly changing the  subject before he had  time to
answer her, she came to the matter uppermost in her mind.
     "I have  so  wanted to see you in all these months, Andre. You were the
only one  who could help me; the only one who could tell me the truth, and I
was angry  with you for  never having  written to say where  you were  to be
found."
     "Of course you encouraged me to do so when last we met in Nantes."
     "What? Still resentful?"
     "I  am never resentful. You  should know that." He expressed one of his
vanities. He loved to think himself a Stoic. "But I still bear the scar of a
wound that would be the better for the balm of your retraction."
     "Why, then, I retract, Andre. And now tell me."
     "Yes, a self-seeking  retraction," said he. "You give me something that
you may obtain something." He laughed quite pleasantly. "Well, well; command
me."
     "Tell me, Andre." She  paused, as  if in some difficulty, and then went
on, her eyes  upon the ground: "Tell  me -  the truth of that event  at  the
Feydau."
     The request  fetched  a  frown to his brow.  He suspected  at once  the
thought  that prompted it. Quite simply and briefly he  gave her his version
of the affair.
     She  listened very attentively.  When  he had done she sighed; her face
was very thoughtful.
     "That is much  what I was told," she said. "But it was added that M. de
La Tour d'Azyr had gone to the theatre expressly for the purpose of breaking
finally with La Binet. Do you know if that was so?"
     "I don't; nor  of any reason why it should be so. La Binet provided him
the sort of amusement that he and his kind are forever craving... "
     "Oh,  there  was a reason,"  she interrupted him. "I was the  reason. I
spoke to Mme.  de Sautron.  I told her  that I would not continue to receive
one  who came  to me  contaminated in that fashion." She  spoke of  it  with
obvious difficulty, her colour rising as he watched her half-averted face.
     "Had  you  listened  to  me...  "  he  was  beginning,  when  again she
interrupted him.
     "M.  de Sautron conveyed my decision to him, and afterwards represented
him to me as a man in despair,  repentant, ready to give proofs - any proofs
- of his sincerity and  devotion to me. He told me that M. de La Tour d'Azyr
had sworn to him  that he  would cut short that affair, that he would see La
Binet no more. And then, on  the very next day I heard of his having all but
lost his life in that  riot  at the theatre. He had gone straight  from that
interview with  M. de Sautron,  straight from those protestations of  future
wisdom, to La Binet. I was indignant.  I pronounced myself finally. I stated
definitely  that  I  would not  in any circumstances  receive M.  de La Tour
d'Azyr  again!  And then they pressed this  explanation  upon me. For a long
time I would not believe it."
     "So that you believe it now," said Andre quickly. "Why?"
     "I have not  said that I believe it now.  But...  but... neither  can I
disbelieve. Since we  came to Meudon M. de La Tour d'Azyr has been here, and
himself he has sworn to me that it was so."
     "Oh, if M. de La Tour d'Azyr has sworn... " Andre-Louis was laughing on
a bitter note of sarcasm.
     "Have  you ever known  him lie?"  she cut in sharply. That checked him.
"M. de  La Tour  d'Azyr is, after all, a man of honour,  and  men of  honour
never deal  in  falsehood.  Have you  ever known him do so, that you  should
sneer as you have done?"
     "No," he confessed. Common justice demanded that  he should admit  that
virtue at least in his enemy. "I  have not known  him lie,  it is  true. His
kind  is too arrogant, too self-confident to have recourse to untruth. But I
have known him do things as vile... "
     "Nothing is as vile," she interrupted, speaking from the code by  which
she had been reared. "It is for liars only - who are first cousin to thieves
- that there is no hope. It  is in falsehood only that there is real loss of
honour."
     "You are defending that satyr, I think," he said frostily.
     "I desire to be just."
     "Justice may seem to you a different matter when at last you shall have
resolved yourself to become Marquise de La Tour d'Azyr." He spoke bitterly.
     "I don't think that I shall ever take that resolve."
     "But you are still not sure - in spite of everything."
     "Can one ever be sure of anything in this world?"
     "Yes. One can be sure of being foolish."
     Either she did not hear or did not heed him.
     "You do not of your own knowledge know that it was not as M. de La Tour
d'Azyr asserts - that he went to the Feydau that night?"
     "I don't," he admitted. "It is of course possible. But does it matter?"
     "It might matter. Tell me; what became of La Binet after all?"
     "I don't know."
     "You don't know?"  She turned to consider him. "And you can say it with
that indifference! I thought... I thought you loved her, Andre"
     "So did I, for a little while.  I was  mistaken. It required  a La Tour
d'Azyr to disclose the  truth to me. They have their  uses, these gentlemen.
They help stupid fellows like  myself to  perceive  important truths. I  was
fortunate that revelation in my case preceded marriage. I can now  look back
upon  the episode with  equanimity and thankfulness for my  near escape from
the consequences of what was no more than an aberration of the senses. It is
a thing commonly confused with  love. The experience,  as you see,  was very
instructive."
     She looked at him in frank surprise.
     "Do you know, Andre, I sometimes think that you have no heart."
     "Presumably  because  I  sometimes  betray intelligence.  And  what  of
yourself, Aline?  What of  your own attitude from the outset where M.  de La
Tour d'Azyr  is concerned? Does that show heart? If I  were to tell you what
it  really shows, we should end by quarrelling again, and  God knows I can't
afford to quarrel with you now. I... I shall take another way.
     "What do you mean?"
     "Why, nothing at the  moment, for you are not in any danger of marrying
that animal."
     "And if I were?"
     "Ah! In that case affection for you would discover to me some  means of
preventing it - unless.. ." He paused.
     "Unless?"  she demanded, challengingly,  drawn to the full  of her sort
height, her eyes imperious.
     "Unless you could  also tell  me that  you  loved him," said he simply,
whereat  she was  as  suddenly and  most oddly softened. And then he  added,
shaking his head: "But that of course is impossible."
     "Why?" she asked him, quite gently now.
     "Because you are what  you  are,  Aline -  utterly good  and  pure  and
adorable. Angels do not mate  with  devils. His wife you  might become,  but
never his mate, Aline - never."
     They had  reached the wrought-iron  gates  at  the  end of  the avenue.
Through these  they beheld  the  waiting yellow  chaise  which  had  brought
Andre-Louis. From  near at hand came the creak of other wheels, the  beat of
other  hooves,  and now  another  vehicle  came  in  sight,  and drew  to  a
stand-still  beside the  yellow  chaise -  a handsome equipage with polished
mahogany panels on  which  the gold and azure  of armorial  bearings flashed
brilliantly in  the sunlight. A  footman  swung to earth to  throw wide  the
gates; but in that  moment the lady  who  occupied the  carriage, perceiving
Aline, waved to her and issued a command.

        CHAPTER V. MADAME DE PLOUGASTEL


     The postilion drew rein, and  the footman opened the door, letting down
the steps  and proffering his  arm to his mistress to assist her  to alight,
since that was  the wish she had expressed. Then he opened  one wing  of the
iron gates, and  held it for  her. She  was a woman  of something  more than
forty,  who once must have  been very lovely, who was very lovely still with
the refining quality that age brings to  some women. Her dress and  carriage
alike advertised great rank.
     "I take my leave here, since you have a visitor," said Andre-Louis.
     "But it is an old acquaintance of your own, Andre. You remember Mme. la
Comtesse de Plougastel?"
     He looked at the approaching lady, whom Aline was now hastening forward
to  meet,  and because she was named to  him he recognized her.  He must, he
thought, had he  but looked, have recognized her without prompting  anywhere
at any time,  and this although it was some  sixteen years since last he had
seen  her. The  sight of her  now brought  it all back to him -  a treasured
memory that had never permitted itself to be entirely overlaid by subsequent
events.
     When he was a boy of ten, on the eve of being sent to school at Rennes,
she  had come  on a visit to his godfather, who was  her cousin. It happened
that at  the time he was  taken by Rabouillet to the Manor of Gavrillac, and
there he had been presented to Mme. de  Plougastel. The great  lady, in  all
the glory then of her youthful beauty, with her gentle, cultured voice -  so
cultured that she had  seemed to  speak  a  language almost  unknown to  the
little Breton lad - and her majestic  air of the great world, had scared him
a little  at first.  Very gently had she allayed those fears of  his, and by
some  mysterious  enchantment she  had completely  enslaved  his  regard. He
recalled now the terror in which he  had gone to the embrace to which he was
bidden, and the  subsequent  reluctance  with  which he  had left those soft
round  arms.  He remembered, too, how sweetly she  had smelled and  the very
perfume she had used,  a perfume as of  lilac  - for  memory  is  singularly
tenacious in these matters.
     For three days whilst she had been at Gavrillac,  he had  gone daily to
the manor, and so had spent hours in her company. A childless woman with the
maternal  instinct  strong  within  her,  she  had  taken  this precociously
intelligent, wide-eyed lad to her heart.
     "Give him to me, Cousin  Quintin," he remembered her saying on the last
of those days to his godfather.  "Let me take him back with me to Versailles
as my adopted child."
     But the  Seigneur had  gravely shaken  his head in silent  refusal, and
there had been no further question of such a thing. And then,  when she said
good-bye to him - the thing came flooding back to him now
     - there had been tears in her eyes.
     "Think of me sometimes, Andre-Louis," had been her last words.
     He  remembered how flattered he had  been to have won within so short a
time the affection  of this great lady. The thing had given him  a  sense of
importance that  had  endured  for  months thereafter, finally  to fade into
oblivion.
     But  all was  vividly remembered  now upon beholding her  again,  after
sixteen years, profoundly changed  and matured, the girl - for she had  been
no more in those old days - sunk in  this worldly woman with the air of calm
dignity and complete self-possession. Yet, he insisted, he  must  have known
her anywhere again.
     Aline embraced her  affectionately, and  then answering the questioning
glance  with  faintly  raised  eyebrows  that madame  was directing  towards
Aline's companion -
     "This is Andre-Louis," she said. "You remember Andre-Louis, madame?"
     Madame  checked. Andre-Louis saw  the  surprise  ripple over her  face,
taking with it some of her colour, leaving her for a moment breathless.
     And then the voice  - the well-remembered rich, musical voice  - richer
and deeper now than of yore, repeated his name:
     "Andre-Louis!"
     Her manner of uttering it suggested that it awakened memories, memories
perhaps of the departed youth with which it was associated. And she paused a
long moment, considering him, a little wide-eyed, what  time he bowed before
her.
     "But of course I remember him," she said at last, and came towards him,
putting  out  her hand. He kissed it dutifully, submissively, instinctively.
"And this  is what you  have grown into?" She appraised him, and he  flushed
with pride at  the  satisfaction  in her tone. He seemed to  have  gone back
sixteen years,  and  to be again the  little Breton  lad  at Gavrillac.  She
turned  to  Aline.  "How mistaken Quintin  was  in his  assumptions.  He was
pleased to see him again, was he not?"
     "So pleased, madame, that he has shown me the door," said Andre-Louis.
     "Ah!" She frowned, conning him still  with those dark, wistful  eyes of
hers. "We must change  that, Aline. He is of course very angry with you. But
it is not the  way to make converts. I will plead for you, Andre-Louis. I am
a good advocate."
     He thanked her and took his leave.
     "I leave my case in your hands with gratitude. My homage, madame."
     And  so  it  happened  that  in  spite of  his  godfather's  forbidding
reception of  him, the  fragment  of a  song  was on  his lips as his yellow
chaise whirled him  back  to Paris and the Rue  du Hasard. That meeting with
Mme. de Plougastel  had  enheartened him; her promise to plead  his  case in
alliance with Aline gave him assurance that all would be well.
     That he was justified of this was proved when on the following Thursday
towards  noon his academy was invaded  by  M. de Kercadiou. Gilles, the boy,
brought him  word of  it, and breaking off at once the lesson upon  which he
was engaged, he  pulled  off his mask, and went  as he was  -  in a  chamois
Waistcoat buttoned to the chin and with his foil under his arm to the modest
salon below, where his godfather awaited him.
     The florid little Lord of Gavrillac stood  almost defiantly to  receive
him.
     "I have been over-persuaded to forgive you," he announced aggressively,
seeming thereby to  imply that he  consented to this merely so as to put  an
end to tiresome importunities.
     Andre-Louis  was not misled.  He  detected  a  pretence adopted  by the
Seigneur so as to enable him to retreat in good order.
     "My  blessings  on the  persuaders,  whoever they may  have  been.  You
restore me my happiness, monsieur my godfather."
     He took  the hand that  was proffered and  kissed  it, yielding to  the
impulse of the unfailing habit of his boyish days.  It was an act symbolical
of his complete submission, reestablishing between himself and his godfather
the bond of protected  and protector, with all the  mutual claims and duties
that  it carries.  No mere words could more  completely have  made his peace
with this man who loved him.
     M.  de Kercadiou's  face flushed a  deeper pink, his lip  trembled, and
there  was  a  huskiness in the voice that murmured "My  dear boy!" Then  he
recollected  himself,  threw  back his great  head  and  frowned.  His voice
resumed its habitual shrillness. "You realize, I hope, that you have behaved
damnably... damnably, and with the utmost ingratitude?"
     "Does not that depend upon the point of view?"  quoth Andre-Louis,  but
his tone was studiously conciliatory.
     "It depends upon  a fact,  and not upon any point of view. Since I have
been persuaded to overlook it, I trust that at least you have some intention
of reforming."
     "I... I will abstain  from politics,"  said Andre-Louis, that being the
utmost he could say with truth.
     "That  is something, at least." His  godfather permitted himself to  be
mollified, now that a concession - or a  seeming  concession - had been made
to his just resentment.
     "A chair, monsieur."
     "No, no. I have come to  carry you off to  pay a visit with me. You owe
it  entirely  to Mme. de  Plougastel that I consent to  receive you again. I
desire that you come with me to thank her."
     "I have my engagements here... " began Andre-Louis, and then broke off.
"No matter! I will arrange it. A moment." And he was turning away to reenter
the academy.
     "What    are   your   engagements?    You   are   not   by   chance   a
fencing-instructor?" M. de  Kercadiou had observed the leather waistcoat and
the foil tucked under Andre-Louis' arm.
     "I am the master of this academy - the academy of the late Bertrand des
Amis, the most flourishing school of arms in Paris to-day."
     M. de Kercadiou's brows went up.
     "And you are master of it?"
     "Maitre  en fait  d'Armes. I succeeded to the academy upon the death of
des Amis."
     He  left  M.  Kercadiou  to  think  it  over,  and  went  to  make  his
arrangements and effect the necessary changes in his toilet.
     "So  that is  why  you have  taken  to wearing  a  sword," said  M.  de
Kercadiou, as they climbed into his waiting carriage.
     "That and the need to guard 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  same time associate  himself with these peddling attorneys and  low
pamphleteers who are spreading dissension and insubordination?"
     "You forget that I am a peddling  attorney myself, made so  by your own
wishes, monsieur."
     M.  de  Kercadiou  grunted,  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
him.
     Then  the  talk  veered  to  Mme.  de  Plougastel.   M.  de  Kercadiou,
Andre-Louis gathered, but not  the  reason for it, disapproved most strongly
of this visit. But then Madame la Comtesse was a headstrong woman whom there
was no denying, whom all  the world  obeyed. M. de Plougastel was at present
absent in Germany,  but would shortly  be  returning.  It was an  indiscreet
admission from which it was easy to infer  that M. de Plougastel  was one of
those  intriguing  emissaries who came  and went between the Queen of France
and her brother, the Emperor of Austria.
     The  carriage  drew  up  before  a  handsome  hotel  in   the  Faubourg
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 in miniature.  Here madame  awaited
them. She rose, dismissing the young person who had been reading to her, and
came forward with both hands outheld to greet 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 him." And
her glance, gentle, and smiling welcome upon him, indicated Andre-Louis.
     The young man made answer with formal gallantry.
     "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 informed him, with a gravity that left
him vaguely 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  madame was studying  him  attentively with those gentle,
wistful eyes, until again that sense of uneasiness began to  pervade him. He
realized instinctively that he had been brought 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  windows  on  to  the terrace, over  whose  white  stone  balustrade the
geraniums trailed in a scarlet  riot.  Thence he vanished  among the foliage
below.
     "Now we 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 uncomfortably.  "You  know,"
she said gently, placing 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 the  most  unhappy,  the  most
despairing  of 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 married."
     "Ah, mon Dieu!" she cried out.
     "Forgive me. I know that it is  horrible. You perceive, perhaps, what I
suffered,  how I came to be driven. That last affair of  which I am guilty -
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 woman, he thought, to fasten upon the unessential.
     "Oh, a theatre girl, a  poor fool of whom I  have no regrets.  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  from such justice
as  exists in  France -  the gallows' justice for unfortunates who  are  not
'born.' This added wrong led me to provoke a riot in the theatre."
     "Poor boy," she said  tenderly. "Only a woman's heart can  realize what
you must  have  suffered; and because of that I  can so readily forgive you.
But now... "
     "Ah, but you don't understand, madame. If  to-day I thought that  I had
none  but personal  grounds  for  having lent  a hand  in  the  holy work of
abolishing Privilege, I think I should cut my throat. My  true justification
lies in the insincerity of those who intended  that  the  convocation of the
States General should be a sham, mere dust in the eyes of the nation."
     "Was it not, perhaps, wise to have been insincere in such a matter?"
     He looked at her blankly.
     "Can it ever be wise, madame, to be insincere?"
     "Oh, indeed  it can; believe me, who am  twice your  age,  and  know my
world."
     "I should say, madame, that nothing is wise that complicates existence;
and I  know of nothing  that  so complicates  it as  insincerity. Consider a
moment the complications that have arisen out of this."
     "But  surely,  Andre-Louis, your views have not  been so perverted that
you do not see that a governing class is a necessity in any country?"
     "Why, of course. But not necessarily a hereditary one."
     "What else?"
     He answered her with an epigram. "Man, madame, is  the child of his own
work.  Let there  be no inheriting of rights but from such  a parent. Thus a
nation's best will  always  predominate,  and  such  a nation  will  achieve
greatly."
     "But do you account birth of no importance?"
     "Of none, madame - or else my own  might  trouble  me."  From  the deep
flush  that stained her face, he feared  that  he had  offended  by what was
almost an  indelicacy. But the reproof that  he was expecting did not  come.
Instead -
     "And does it not?" she asked. "Never, Andre?"
     "Never, madame. I am content."
     "You have never.., never regretted your lack of parents' care?"
     He laughed,  sweeping aside her  sweet  charitable concern that was  so
superfluous.  "On the contrary, madame,  I tremble to  think what they might
have made of me, and I am grateful to have had the fashioning of myself."
     She looked at him for  a moment  very sadly,  and then, smiling, gently
shook her head.
     "You do  not want self-satisfaction...  Yet I could wish  that you  saw
things differently, Andre. It is a moment of great opportunities for a young
man of talent and spirit. I could help you; I could help you, perhaps, to go
very far if you would permit yourself to be helped after my fashion."
     "Yes," he thought, "help  me to a halter by sending me  on  treasonable
missions to Austria on the Queen's behalf, like M. de Plougastel. That would
certainly end in a high position for me."
     Aloud he answered more as politeness prompted. "I  am grateful, madame.
But you  will see that, holding  the ideals I  have expressed,  I could  not
serve any cause that is opposed to their realization."
     "You are misled by prejudice, Andre-Louis, by personal grievances. Will
you allow them to stand in the way of your advancement?"
     "If what I call ideals were really prejudices, would it be honest of me
to run counter to them whilst holding them?"
     "If I could  convince you that you are  mistaken!  I could  help you so
much to find a worthy employment for the talents you possess. In the service
of the King you would prosper quickly.  Will  you think of it,  Andre-Louis,
and let us talk of this again?"
     He answered her with formal, chill politeness.
     "I fear that it would be idle, madame. Yet  your interest in me is very
flattering,  and I  thank you.  It  is unfortunate  for  me  that  I  am  so
headstrong."
     "And now who deals in insincerity?" she asked him.
     "Ah, but you see, madame, it is an insincerity that does not mislead."
     And  then  M.  de Kercadiou  came in  through  the  window  again,  and
announced fussily that he must be  getting back to Meudon, and that he would
take his godson with him and set him down at the Rue du Hasard.
     "You must bring him  again,  Quintin," the  Countess said, as they took
their leave of her.
     "Some day, perhaps,"said M. de Kercadiou vaguely, and swept his  godson
out.
     In the carriage he asked him bluntly of what madame had talked.
     "She was very kind - a sweet woman," said Andre-Louis pensively.
     "Devil take you, I didn't ask you  the opinion that you presume to have
formed of her. I asked you what she said to you.
     "She strove to point out to me the error of my ways. She spoke of great
things that I might do - to which she would very kindly help me - if I  were
to come to my senses.  But  as miracles  do not happen,  I  gave her  little
encouragement to hope."
     "I see. I see. Did she say anything else?"
     He was so peremptory that Andre-Louis turned to look at him.
     "What else did you expect her to say, monsieur my godfather?"
     "Oh, nothing."
     "Then she fulfilled your expectations."
     "Eh?  Oh,  a thousand devils,  why  can't  you  express  yourself  in a
sensible manner that  a plain  man can understand  without  having to  think
about it?"
     He sulked after that  most of  the way to the Rue du Hasard, or  so  it
seemed to  Andre-Louis. At least he sat silent, gloomily thoughtful to judge
by his expression.
     "You may come and see us soon again at Meudon," he  told Andre-Louis at
parting. "But please  remember - no revolutionary politics  in future, if we
are to remain friends."

        CHAPTER VI. POLITICIANSI


     One morning in  August the  academy in the Rue du Hasard was invaded by
Le Chapelier accompanied by a  man of remarkable appearance, whose herculean
stature and disfigured  countenance seemed vaguely familiar  to Andre-Louis.
He was  a man  of  little, if anything, over thirty, with  small bright eyes
buried in an enormous  face. His  cheek-bones were prominent, his nose awry,
as  if  it  had been  broken by a blow, and his  mouth  was  rendered almost
shapeless by the scars of another injury. (A bull had horned him in the face
when he was but a lad.) As if that were not enough to render  his appearance
terrible,  his cheeks were deeply  pock-marked. He was dressed untidily in a
long  scarlet  coat  that descended almost to his  ankles,  soiled  buckskin
breeches and boots with reversed tops. His  shirt, none too  clean, was open
at  the  throat,  the  collar  hanging  limply  over  an  unknotted  cravat,
displaying fully the muscular  neck that rose like a pillar from his massive
shoulders. He swung  a cane that  was almost a club in  his left  hand,  and
there was a cockade in his biscuit-coloured, conical hat. He carried himself
with an aggressive, masterful air, that great head of his  thrown back as if
he were eternally at defiance.
     Le Chapelier, whose manner was very grave, named him to Andre-Louis.
     "This is M.  Danton, a brother-lawyer, President  of the Cordeliers, of
whom you will have heard."
     Of course Andre-Louis had heard of him. Who had not, by then?
     Looking at him now with interest, Andre-Louis wondered how it came that
all,  or nearly all the leading innovators,  were pock-marked. Mirabeau, t