GILBERTE [_gravely_]

And Jean went to see her die?

MARTINEL

He had just time to say farewell to her.

GILBERTE [_to herself_]

If I could only tell what pa.s.sed between them at that moment! Ah, this wretched death is worse for me than if she were alive!

MME. DE RONCHARD [_rises_ R. _and goes up stage_]

I really do not understand you, my dear. The woman has died--so much the better for you. May G.o.d deliver you from all such!

GILBERTE

No, my dear Aunt; the feeling I have just now is so painful that I would sooner know her to be far away than to know her dead.

PEt.i.tPRe [_comes down_]

Yes, I admit that is the sentiment of a woman moved by a horrible catastrophe; but there is one grave complication in the matter--that of the child. Whatever may be done with it, he will none the less be the son of my son-in-law and a menace to us all.

MME. DE RONCHARD

And a subject for ridicule. See what the world will say of us in a little while.

LeON

Leave the world to itself, my dear Aunt, and let us occupy ourselves with our own business. [_Goes to Gilberte_.] Now, Gilberte, is it the idea of the child that moves you so deeply?

GILBERTE

Oh, no,--the poor little darling!

PEt.i.tPRe

Such is the foolishness of women who know nothing of life.

LeON

Well, father, why, if we have so many different views,--according as we are spectators or actors in the course of events,--why is there so much difference between the life of the imagination and the actual life; between that which one ought to do; that which you would that others should do, and that which you do yourself. Yes, what has happened is very painful; but the surprise of the event, its coincidence with the nuptial day makes it still more painful. We magnify--everything in our emotion, when it is ourselves that misfortune touches. Suppose, for a moment, that you had read this in your daily newspaper--

MME. DE RONCHARD [_seated_ L. _of table, indignantly_]

In my daily newspaper!

LeON

Or in a romance. What emotion we should feel; what tears we should shed!

How your sympathy would quickly go out to the poor little child whose birth was attained at the cost of his mother's life! How Jean would go up in your esteem; how frank, how loyal, how stanch in his fealty you would consider him; while, on the other hand, if he had deserted the dying woman, and had spirited away the little one into some distant village, you would not have had enough scorn for him, or enough insults for him. You would look upon him as a being without heart and without fear; and, you, my dear Aunt, thinking of the innumerable little bad dogs who owe you their lives, you would cry out with forcible gestures: "What a miserable scoundrel!"

MARTINEL [_seated_ L.]

That's perfectly true.

MME. DE RONCHARD

Dogs are worth more than men.

LeON

Little children are not men, my dear Aunt. They have not had time to become bad.

PEt.i.tPRe

All that is very ingenious, Leon, and your special pleading is magnificent.

MME. DE RONCHARD

Yes, if you would only plead like that at the Palais.

PEt.i.tPRe

But this has nothing to do with a romance or with imaginary personages.

We have married Gilberte to a young man in the ordinary conditions of life.

MME. DE RONCHARD

Without enthusiasm.

PEt.i.tPRe

Without enthusiasm, it is true, but nevertheless they are married, just the same. Now, on the evening of his nuptials, he brings us a present--I must say I do not care for a present which bawls.

LeON

What does that prove, unless it is that your son-in-law is a brave man?

What he has just done--risked his happiness in order to accomplish his duty--does it not say better than anything else could, how capable of devotion he is?

MARTINEL

Clear as the day.

MME. DE RONCHARD [_aside_]

And this man from Havre admires him!