interests. She has been watching Mademoiselle Marguerite, and saw a letter written by her——”
“Oh!”
“Certainly nothing has passed that Mademoiselle Marguerite has any cause to blush for. The letter, which is now in my possession, contains unmistakable proofs of that. She might proudly avow the love she has inspired, and which she undoubtedly returns. Yet——”
M. Fortunat’s gaze was so intent that it became unbearable. “You see, then,” he began, “that I had good cause to fear.”
Exasperated beyond endurance, M. de Valorsay sprang up so violently that he overturned his chair. “No!” he exclaimed, “no, a thousand times no! You are wrong—for the man who loves Mademoiselle Marguerite is now ruined. Yes, such is really the case. While we are sitting here, at this very moment, he is lost—irredeemably lost. Between him and the woman whom I wish to marry—whom I SHALL marry—I have dug so broad and deep an abyss that the strongest love cannot overleap it. It is better and worse than if I had killed him. Dead, he would have been mourned, perhaps; while now, the lowest and most degraded woman would turn from him in disgust, or, even if she loved him, she would not dare to confess it.”
M. Fortunat seemed greatly disturbed. “Have you then put into execution the project—the plan you spoke of?” he faltered. “I thought you were only jesting.”
The marquis lowered his head. “Yes,” he answered.
His companion stood for a moment as if petrified, and then suddenly exclaimed: “What! You have done that—you—a gentleman?”
M. de Valorsay paced the floor in a state of intense agitation. Had he caught a glimpse of his own face in the looking-glass, it would have frightened him. “A gentleman!” he repeated, in a tone of suppressed rage; “a gentleman! That word is in everybody’s mouth, nowadays. Pray, what do you understand by a gentleman, Mons. Fortunat? No doubt, you mean a heroic idiot who passed through life with a lofty mien, clad in all the virtues, as stoical as Job, and as resigned as a martyr—a sort of moral Don Quixote, preaching the austerest virtue, and practising it? But, unfortunately, nobility of soul and of purpose are expensive luxuries, and I am a ruined man. I am no saint! I love
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