later I should be a
lost girl."

Camors remained silent. "Why do you not answer?" she asked.

"Heavens! Mademoiselle, because this is so delicate a subject, and our
ideas are so different about it. I can not change mine; I must leave you
yours. As for me, I am a very pagan."

"How? Are good and bad indifferent to you?"

"No; but to me it seems bad to fear the opinion of people one despises,
to practise what one does not believe, and to yield before prejudices and
phantoms of which one knows the unreality. It is bad to be a slave or a
hypocrite, as are three fourths of the world. Evil is ugliness,
ignorance, folly, and baseness. Good is beauty, talent, ability, and
courage! That is all."

"And God?" the girl cried. He did not reply. She looked fixedly at him a
moment without catching the eyes he kept turned from her. Her head
drooped heavily; then raising it suddenly, she said: "There are
sentiments men can not understand. In my bitter hours I have often
dreamed of this free life you now advise; but I have always recoiled
before one thought--only one."

"And that?"

"Perhaps the sentiment is not peculiar to me--perhaps it is excessive
pride, but I have a great regard for myself--my person is sacred to me.
Should I come to believe in nothing, like you--and I am far from that
yet, thank God!--I should even then remain honest and true--faithful to
one love, simply from pride. I should prefer," she added, in a voice deep
and sustained, but somewhat strained, "I should prefer to desecrate an
altar rather than myself!"

Saying these words, she rose, made a haughty movement of the head in sign
of an adieu, and left the room.

CHAPTER V

THE COUNT LOSES A LADY AND FINDS A MISSION

Camors sat for some time plunged in thought.

He was astonished at the depths he had discovered in her character; he
was displeased with himself without well knowing why; and, above all, he
was much struck by his cousin.

However, as he had but a slight opinion of the sincerity of women, he
persuaded himself that Mademoiselle de Luc d'Estrelles, when she came to
offer him her heart and hand, nevertheless knew he was not altogether a
despicable match for her. He said to himself that a few years back he
might have been duped by her apparent sincerity, and congratulated
himself on not having fallen into this attractive snare--on not having
listened to the first promptings of credulity and sincere emotion.

He might have spared him