not sully me. She may cause a little ridicule to arise, but that I can
scorn. The laugh at Montmorency will not reach Paris, far less echo
around the globe! For a long time I hoped to enlighten her and redeem
her, but I have failed. But I am bound to enlighten you and save you, am
I not? From the feeling you harbor can spring only an additional shame
for Cesarine, and certain, perhaps irreparable woe for you. Stop, turn
about and look the other way. A man of twenty, who may naturally live
another three-score years and work during two of them, who would talk to
you of that nonsense, love's sorrow? That was all very well once, when
the world revolved slowly and there was little to be done by the people
who blocked nobody's way. But these are busy times and things to be done
cannot wait till you finish loving and wailing, or till you die of a
broken heart without having done anything for your fellow men."

"Bravo!" exclaimed the sympathetical and easily aroused Italian,
grasping the speaker by the hand and pressing it with revived energy.
"My excellent leader, you are right!"

"And by and by," said the other, with an effort, as though he had to
master inward commotion, "when you win a prize from your own country and
you look for household joys more agreeably to reward you, you may find
one not far from here at this moment to be your wife. For, generally,
the bane is near the antidote--the serpent is crushed under the heel
next the beneficent plant which heals the bite."

"Rebecca?" questioned the young man in amazement. "But if I can read her
heart as you do mine, master, Rebecca Daniels loves you."

"She admires me and pities me, Antonino," replied Clemenceau, hastily,
as if wishful to elude the question. "She does not love me. Besides,
that is of no consequence. I have no room for love again--always
provided that I have once loved. Passion often has the honor of being
confounded with the purer feeling, especially in the young. Did I love
that monster--for she is a monster, Antonino--I might forgive, for love
excuses everything--that is true love, but it is rare as virtue--common
sense and all that is truth. To the altar of love, many are called, but
few elected, and all are not fit.

"I see you are not convinced, because the dog that bit me is so shapely,
and graceful and wears so silky a coat! Such dogs are mad and their bite
in the heart is fatal and agonizing unless one at once applies the white
hot cautery. The