I also cared more for ideas than for the sordid things of life.
It is in our blood, you see" she was talking with less restraint now,
for she saw he was listening, despite assumed indifference--"and Pontiac
was dearer to me than all else in the world. Louis Racine belonged
there. You--what sort of place would you, an Englishman, have occupied
at the Seigneury of Pontiac! What kind--"

He got suddenly to his feet. He was a man of strange whims and vanities,
and his resentment at his exclusion from the Seigneury of Pontiac had
become a fixed idea. He had hugged the thought of its possession before
M. de la Riviere died, as a man humbly born prides himself on the
distinguished lineage of his wife. His great schemes were completed, he
was a rich man, and he had pictured himself retiring to this Seigneury,
a peaceful and practical figure, living out his days in a refined repose
which his earlier life had never known. She had touched the raw nerves
of his secret vanity.

"What kind of Seigneur would I make, eh? What sort of figure would I cut
in Pontiac!" He laughed loudly. "By heaven, Madame, you shall see! I
did not move against his outrage and assault, but I will move to purpose
now. For you and he shall leave there in disgrace before another week
goes round. I have you both in my 'practical power,' and I will squeeze
satisfaction out of you. He is a ruffianly interloper, and you, Madame,
the law would call by another name."

She got quickly to her feet and came a step nearer to him. Leaning a
hand on the table, she bent towards him slightly. Something seemed to
possess her that transfigured her face, and gave it a sense of power and
confidence. Her eyes fixed themselves steadily on him.

"Monsieur," she said, "you may call me what you will, and I will bear
it, for you have been sorely injured. You are angry because I seemed to
think an Englishman was not fitted to be Seigneur of Pontiac. We French
are a people of sentiments and ideas; we make idols of trifles, and we
die for fancies. We dream, we have shrines for memories. These things
you despise. You would give us justice and make us rich by what you call
progress. Monsieur, that is not enough. We are not born to appreciate
you. Our hearts are higher than our heads, and, under a flag that
conquered us, they cling together. Was it strange that I should think
Louis Racine better suited to be Seigneur at Pontiac?"

She paused as though expecting him to answer, but he o