Have you been gambling? have you lost money at the Bourse? Say, 'Uncle, I'm a wretch,' and I'll hug you. But if you tell me any lies greater than those I used to tell at your age I'll sell my property, buy an annuity, and go back to the evil ways of my youth--if I can."
"Uncle--"
"I saw your Madame Firmiani yesterday," went on the old fellow, kissing the tips of his fingers, which he gathered into a bunch. "She is charming. You have the consent and approbation of your uncle, if that will do you any good. As to the sanction of the Church I suppose that's useless, and the sacraments cost so much in these days. Come, speak out, have you ruined yourself for her?"
"Yes, uncle."
"Ha! the jade! I'd have wagered it. In my time the women of the court were cleverer at ruining a man than the courtesans of to-day; but this one--I recognized her!--it is a bit of the last century."
"Uncle," said Octave, with a manner that was tender and grave, "you are totally mistaken. Madame Firmiani deserves your esteem, and all the adoration the world gives her."
"Youth, youth! always the same!" cried Monsieur de Bourbonne. "Well, go on; tell me the same old story. But please remember that my experience in gallantry is not of yesterday."
"My dear, kind uncle, here is a letter which will tell you nearly all," said Octave, taking it from an elegant portfolio, HER gift, no doubt. "When you have read it I will tell you the rest, and you will then know a Madame Firmiani who is unknown to the world."
"I haven't my spectacles; read it aloud."
Octave began:--
"'My beloved--'"
"Hey, then you are still intimate with her?" interrupted his uncle.
"Why yes, of course."
"You haven't parted from her?"
"Parted!" repeated Octave, "we are married."
"Heavens!" cried Monsieur de Bourbonne, "then why do you live in a garret?"
"Let me go on."
"True--I'm listening."
Octave resumed the letter, but there were passages which he could not read without deep emotion.
"'My beloved Husband,--You ask me the reason of my sadness. Has it, then, passed from my soul to my face; or have you only guessed it?--but how could you fail to do so, one in heart as we are? I cannot deceive you; this may be a misfortune, for it is one of the conditions of happy love that a wife shall be gay and caressing. Perhaps I ought to deceive you, but I would not do it even if the happiness with which you have blessed and overpowered me depended on it.
"'Ah! dearest, how much gratitude there is in my love. I long to love you forever, without limit; yes, I desire to be forever proud of you. A woman's glory is in the man she loves. Esteem, consideration, honor, must they not be his who receives our all? Well, my angel has fallen. Yes, dear, the tale you told me has tarnished my past joys. Since then I have felt myself humiliated in you,--you whom I thought the most honorable of men, as you are the most loving, the most tender. I must indeed have deep confidence in your heart, so young and pure, to make you this avowal which costs me much. Ah! my dear love, how is it that you, knowing your father had unjustly deprived others of their property, that YOU can keep it?
"'And you told me of this criminal act in a room filled with the mute witnesses of our love; and you are a gentleman, and you think yourself noble, and I am yours! I try to find excuses for you; I do find them in your youth and thoughtlessness. I know there is still something of the child about you. Perhaps you have never thought seriously of what fortune and integrity are. Oh! how your laugh wounded me. Reflect on that ruined family, always in distress; poor young girls who have reason to curse you daily; an old father saying to himself each night: "We might not now be starving if that man's father had been an honest man--"'"
"Good heavens!" cried Monsieur de Bourbonne, interrupting his nephew, "surely you have not been such a fool as to tell that woman about your father's affair with the Bourgneufs? Women know more about wasting a fortune than making one."
"They know about integrity. But let me read on, uncle."
"'Octave, no power on earth has authority to change the principles of honor. Look into your conscience and ask it by what name you are to call the action by which you hold your property.'"
The nephew looked at the uncle, who lowered his head.
"'I will not tell you all the thoughts that assail me; they can be reduced to one,--this is it: I cannot respect the man who, knowingly, is smirched for a sum of money, whatever the amount may be; five francs stolen at play or five times a hundred thousand gained by a legal trick are equally dishonoring. I will tell you all. I feel myself degraded by the very love which has hitherto been all my joy. There rises in my soul a voice which my tenderness cannot stifle. Ah! I have wept to feel that I have more conscience than love. Were you to commit a crime I would hide you in my bosom from human justice, but my devotion could go no farther.