ee those whom we had considered
immaculate suddenly yield to temptation. And a murmur of respectful
admiration rose from the throng when the excitement had subsided a
little, and the guests had an opportunity to observe Mademoiselle
Marguerite, whose eyes sparkled more brightly than ever through her
happy tears; and whose beauty acquired an almost sublime expression from
her deep emotion.

The wretched Valorsay felt that all was over--that he was irretrievably
lost. Seized by a blind fury like that which impels a hunted animal
to turn and face the hounds that pursue him, and bid them defiance, he
confronted the throng with his face distorted with passion, his eyes
bloodshot, and foam upon his lips; he was absolutely frightful in his
cynicism, hatred, and scorn. "Ah! well, yes!" he exclaimed--"yes, all
that you have just heard is true. I was sinking, and I tried to save
myself as best I could. Beggars cannot be choosers; I staked my all upon
a single die. If I had won, you would have been at my feet; but I have
lost and you spurn me. Cowards! hypocrites! that you are, insult me if
you like, but tell me how many among you all are sufficiently pure and
upright to have a right to despise me! Are there a hundred among you?
are there even fifty?"

A tempest of hisses momentarily drowned his voice, but as soon as the
uproar had ceased, he resumed, sneeringly: "Ah! the truth wounds you, my
dear friends. Pray, don't pretend to be so distressingly virtuous! I
was ruined--that is the long and short of it. But what man of you is not
embarrassed? Who among you finds his income sufficient? Which one of you
is not encroaching upon his capital? And when you have come to your last
louis, you will do what I have done, or something worse. Do not deny it,
for not one among you has a more uncompromising conscience, more moral
firmness, or more generous aspirations than I once possessed. You are
pursuing what I pursued. You desire what I desired--a life of luxury,
brief if it must be, but happy--a life of gayety, wild excitement,
and dissipation. You, too, have a passion for pleasure and gambling,
race-horses, and notorious women, a table always bountifully spread,
glasses ever overflowing with wine, all the delights of luxury, and
everything that gratifies your vanity! But an abyss of shame awaits you
at the end of it all. I am in it now. I await you there, for there you
will surely, necessarily, inevitably come. Ah, ha! you will not then