to justify a surmise that he had not
merely been La Tour d'Azyr's second in the encounter, but actually
an instigator of the business. Andre-Louis may therefore have felt a
justifiable satisfaction in offering up the Chevalier's life to the
Manes of his murdered friend. He may have viewed it as an act of
common justice not to be procured by any other means. Also it is to
be remembered that Chabrillane had gone confidently to the meeting,
conceiving that he, a practised ferailleur, had to deal with a bourgeois
utterly unskilled in swordsmanship. Morally, then, he was little
better than a murderer, and that he should have tumbled into the pit
he conceived that he dug for Andre-Louis was a poetic retribution.
Yet, notwithstanding all this, I should find the cynical note on which
Andre-Louis announced the issue to the Assembly utterly detestable did
I believe it sincere. It would justify Aline of the expressed opinion,
which she held in common with so many others who had come into close
contact with him, that Andre-Louis was quite heartless.

You have seen something of the same heartlessness in his conduct when he
discovered the faithlessness of La Binet although that is belied by the
measures he took to avenge himself. His subsequent contempt of the woman
I account to be born of the affection in which for a time he held her.
That this affection was as deep as he first imagined, I do not believe;
but that it was as shallow as he would almost be at pains to make it
appear by the completeness with which he affects to have put her from
his mind when he discovered her worthlessness, I do not believe; nor,
as I have said, do his actions encourage that belief. Then, again,
his callous cynicism in hoping that he had killed Binet is also an
affectation. Knowing that such things as Binet are better out of the
world, he can have suffered no compunction; he had, you must remember,
that rarely level vision which sees things in their just proportions,
and never either magnifies or reduces them by sentimental
considerations. At the same time, that he should contemplate the
taking of life with such complete and cynical equanimity, whatever the
justification, is quite incredible.

Similarly now, it is not to be believed that in coming straight from
the Bois de Boulogne, straight from the killing of a man, he should be
sincerely expressing his nature in alluding to the fact in terms of such
outrageous flippancy. Not quite to such an exten