er the fashion of
Plutarch's time! So you give up my name and my fortune, and you leave
me. You will shake the dust from your shoes upon the threshold of my
house; and you will go out into the world. I see only one difficulty in
your way. How do you expect to live, my stoic philosopher? Have you a
trade at your fingers' ends, like Jean Jacques Rousseau's Emile? Or,
worthy M. Gerdy, have you learned economy from the four thousand francs
a month I allow you for waxing your moustache? Perhaps you have made
money on the Bourse! Then my name must have seemed very burdensome to
you to bear, since you so eagerly introduced it into such a place! Has
dirt, then, so great an attraction for you that you must jump from
your carriage so quickly? Say, rather, that the company of my friends
embarrasses you, and that you are anxious to go where you will be among
your equals."

"I am very wretched, sir," replied Albert to this avalanche of insults,
"and you would crush me!"

"You wretched! Well, whose fault is it? But let us get back to my
question. How and on what will you live?"

"I am not so romantic as you are pleased to say, sir. I must confess
that, as regards the future, I have counted upon your kindness. You are
so rich, that five hundred thousand francs would not materially affect
your fortune; and, on the interest of that sum, I could live quietly, if
not happily."

"And suppose I refuse you this money?"

"I know you well enough, sir, to feel sure that you will not do so. You
are too just to wish that I alone should expiate wrongs that are not of
my making. Left to myself, I should at my present age have achieved a
position. It is late for me to try and make one now; but I will do my
best."

"Superb!" interrupted the count; "you are really superb! One never heard
of such a hero of romance. What a character! But tell me, what do you
expect from all this astonishing disinterestedness?"

"Nothing, sir."

The count shrugged his shoulders, looked sarcastically at his son, and
observed: "The compensation is very slight. And you expect me to believe
all this! No, sir, mankind is not in the habit of indulging in such fine
actions for its pleasure alone. You must have some reason for acting so
grandly; some reason which I fail to see."

"None but what I have already told you."

"Therefore it is understood you intend to relinquish everything;
you will even abandon your proposed union with Mademoiselle Claire
d'Arlange? You