"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."