rpret Madame Firmiani's agitation exactly in this way: pray forgive
him, all provincials are distrustful.

"Well, monsieur?" said Madame Firmiani, giving him one of those clear,
lucid glances in which we men can never see anything because they
question us too much.

"Well, madame," returned the old man, "do you know what some one came to
tell me in the depths of my province? That my nephew had ruined himself
for you, and that the poor fellow was living in a garret while you were
in silk and gold. Forgive my rustic sincerity; it may be useful for you
to know of these calumnies."

"Stop, monsieur," said Madame Firmiani, with an imperative gesture; "I
know all that. You are too polite to continue this subject if I request
you to leave it, and too gallant--in the old-fashioned sense of the
word," she added with a slight tone of irony--"not to agree that you
have no right to question me. It would be ridiculous in me to defend
myself. I trust that you will have a sufficiently good opinion of my
character to believe in the profound contempt which, I assure you, I
feel for money,--although I was married, without any fortune, to a man
of immense wealth. It is nothing to me whether your nephew is rich or
poor; if I have received him in my house, and do now receive him, it
is because I consider him worthy to be counted among my friends. All
my friends, monsieur, respect each other; they know that I have not
philosophy enough to admit into my house those I do not esteem; this may
argue a want of charity; but my guardian-angel has maintained in me to
this day a profound aversion for tattle, and also for dishonesty."

Through the ring of her voice was slightly raised during the first
part of this answer, the last words were said with the ease and
self-possession of Celimene bantering the Misanthrope.

"Madame," said Monsieur de Bourbonne, in a voice of some emotion, "I
am an old man; I am almost Octave's father, and I ask your pardon most
humbly for the question that I shall now venture to put to you, giving
you my word of honor as a loyal gentleman that your answer shall die
here,"--laying his hand upon his heart, with an old-fashioned gesture
that was truly religious. "Are these rumors true; do you love Octave?"

"Monsieur," she replied, "to any other man I should answer that question
only by a look; but to you, and because you are indeed almost the father
of Monsieur de Camps, I reply by asking what you would think of a woman