"Monsieur is old and can not appreciate the natural exuberance of youth."
The marquis fumbled at his lips.
"Surely, Monsieur," went on the Chevalier, the devil of banter in his
tones, "surely you are not going to preach me a sermon after having
taught me life from your own book?"
"Monsieur, attend to me. You have disappointed me in a hundred ways."
"What! have I not proved an apt scholar? Have I not succeeded in being
written in Rochelle as a drunkard and a gamester? Perhaps I have not
concerned myself sufficiently with women? Ah well, Monsieur, I am young
yet; there is still time to make me totally hateful, not only to others,
but to myself."
All these replies, which passed above and below the marquis's guard,
pierced the quick; and the marquis, whose impulse had been good, but
whose approach to the vital point of discussion was without tact, began
to lose patience; and a cold anger awoke in his eyes.
"Monsieur le Comte," he said, rising, "I have summoned you here to
discuss not the past, but the future." He was quite as tall as his son,
but gaunt and with loosely hanging clothes.
"The future?" said the Chevalier. "Best assured, Monsieur, that you
shall have no hand in mine."
"Be not too certain of that," replied the marquis, his lips parting in
that chilling smile with which he had formerly greeted opponents on the
field of honor. "And, after all, you might have the politeness to
remember that I am, whatever else, still your father."
The Chevalier bowed ironically. Had he been less drunk he would have
read the warning which lay in his father's eyes, now brilliant with the
spirit of conflict. But he rushed on to his doom, as it was written he
should. Paris was in his mind, Paris and mademoiselle, whose letter lay
warm against his heart. He turned to his mother's portrait, and again
bowed, sweeping the floor with the plume of his hat.
"Madame, yours was a fortunate escape. Would that I had gone with you on
the journey. Have you a spirit? Well, then, observe me; note the bister
about my eyes, the swollen lips, the shaking hand. 'Twas a lesson I
learned some years ago from Monsieur le Marquis, your husband, my father.
You, Madame, died at my birth, therefore I have known no mother. Am I a
drunkard, a wine-bibber, a roisterer by night? Say then, who taught me?
Before I became of age my foolish heart was filled with love which must
spend itself upon something. I offered this love, filial and respectful,
to Monsieur le Marquis. Madame, the bottle was more responsive to this
outburst of generous youth than Monsieur le Marquis, to whom I was a
living plaything, a clay which he molded as a pastime--too readily, alas!
And now, behold! he speaks of respect. It would be droll if it were not
sad. True, he gave me gold; but he also taught me how to use this
devil-key which unlocks the pathways of the world, wine-cellars and
women's hearts. Respect? Has he ever taken me by the hand as natural
fathers take their sons, and asked me to be his comrade? Has he ever
taught me to rise to heights, to scorn the petty forms and molds of life?
Have I not been as the captive eagle, drawn down at every flight? And
for this . . . respect? Oh, Madame, scarcely! And often I thought of
the happiness of beholding my father depending on me in his old age!"