to the door.

The action, and more the contempt of his look, laugh, and words stung M.
Binet to passion, drove out the conciliatoriness of his mood.

"Fantastic, are we?" he cried, turning to follow the departing
Scaramouche with his little eyes that now were inexpressibly evil.
"Fantastic that we should prefer the powerful protection of this great
nobleman to marriage with a beggarly, nameless bastard. Oh, we are
fantastic!"

Andre-Louis turned, his hand upon the door-handle. "No," he said, "I was
mistaken. You are not fantastic. You are just vile--both of you." And he
went out.

CHAPTER X. CONTRITION

Mlle. de Kercadiou walked with her aunt in the bright morning sunshine
of a Sunday in March on the broad terrace of the Chateau de Sautron.

For one of her natural sweetness of disposition she had been oddly
irritable of late, manifesting signs of a cynical worldliness, which
convinced Mme. de Sautron more than ever that her brother Quintin
had scandalously conducted the child's education. She appeared to be
instructed in all the things of which a girl is better ignorant, and
ignorant of all the things that a girl should know. That at least was
the point of view of Mme. de Sautron.

"Tell me, madame," quoth Aline, "are all men beasts?" Unlike her
brother, Madame la Comtesse was tall and majestically built. In the days
before her marriage with M. de Sautron, ill-natured folk described her
as the only man in the family. She looked down now from her noble height
upon her little niece with startled eyes.

"Really, Aline, you have a trick of asking the most disconcerting and
improper questions."

"Perhaps it is because I find life disconcerting and improper."

"Life? A young girl should not discuss life."

"Why not, since I am alive? You do not suggest that it is an impropriety
to be alive?"

"It is an impropriety for a young unmarried girl to seek to know too
much about life. As for your absurd question about men, when I remind
you that man is the noblest work of God, perhaps you will consider
yourself answered."

Mme. de Sautron did not invite a pursuance of the subject. But Mlle. de
Kercadiou's outrageous rearing had made her headstrong.

"That being so," said she, "will you tell me why they find such an
overwhelming attraction in the immodest of our sex?"

Madame stood still and raised shocked hands. Then she looked down her
handsome, high-bridged nose.

"Sometimes--often, in fact, my dear Al