ther, the courts instantly restored the child to the
father, though he had--well, given as much cause for divorce as my
unfortunate brother?"

Durham gave an ironic laugh. "Your French justice takes a grammar
and dictionary to understand."

She smiled. "_We_ understand it--and it isn't necessary that you
should."

"So it would appear!" he exclaimed bitterly.

"Don't judge us too harshly--or not, at least, till you have taken
the trouble to learn our point of view. You consider the
individual--we think only of the family."

"Why don't you take care to preserve it, then?"

"Ah, that's what we do; in spite of every aberration of the
individual. And so, when we saw it was impossible that my brother
and his wife should live together, we simply transferred our
allegiance to the child--we constituted _him_ the family."

"A precious kindness you did him! If the result is to give him back
to his father."

"That, I admit, is to be deplored; but his father is only a fraction
of the whole. What we really do is to give him back to his race, his
religion, his true place in the order of things."

"His mother never tried to deprive him of any of those inestimable
advantages!"

Madame de Treymes unclasped her hands with a slight gesture of
deprecation.

"Not consciously, perhaps; but silences and reserves can teach so
much. His mother has another point of view--"

"Thank heaven!" Durham interjected.

"Thank heaven for _her_--yes--perhaps; but it would not have done
for the boy."

Durham squared his shoulders with the sudden resolve of a man
breaking through a throng of ugly phantoms.

"You haven't yet convinced me that it won't have to do for him. At
the time of Madame de Malrive's separation, the court made no
difficulty about giving her the custody of her son; and you must
pardon me for reminding you that the father's unfitness was the
reason alleged."

Madame de Treymes shrugged her shoulders. "And my poor brother, you
would add, has not changed; but the circumstances have, and that
proves precisely what I have been trying to show you: that, in such
cases, the general course of events is considered, rather than the
action of any one person."

"Then why is Madame de Malrive's action to be considered?"

"Because it breaks up the unity of the family."

"_Unity--!_" broke from Durham; and Madame de Treymes gently
suffered his smile.

"Of the family tradition, I mean: it introduces new elements. You
are a new