sorrowful
maternal love she was already weakening, although it was regretfully that
she had lent her name to one of those noisy charitable enterprises, which
people abused to further their selfish interests in a manner she
condemned.
"But, madame," Pierre insisted, "it is a question of a poor starving old
man. I implore you to be compassionate."
Although the priest had spoken in a low voice the General drew near.
"It's for your old revolutionary that you are running about, is it not,"
said he. "Didn't you succeed with the manager, then? The fact is that
it's difficult to feel any pity for fellows who, if they were the
masters, would, as they themselves say, sweep us all away."
M. de Larombiere jerked his chin approvingly. For some time past he had
been haunted by the Anarchist peril. But Pierre, distressed and
quivering, again began to plead his cause. He spoke of all the frightful
misery, the homes where there was no food, the women and children
shivering with cold, and the fathers scouring muddy, wintry Paris in
search of a bit of bread. All that he asked for was a line on a visiting
card, a kindly word from the Countess, which he would at once carry to
Baroness Duvillard to prevail on her to set the regulations aside. And
his words fell one by one, tremulous with stifled tears, in that mournful
_salon_, like sounds from afar, dying away in a dead world where there
was no echo left.
Madame de Quinsac turned towards M. de Morigny, but he seemed to take no
interest in it all. He was gazing fixedly at the fire, with the haughty
air of a stranger who was indifferent to the things and beings in whose
midst an error of time compelled him to live. But feeling that the glance
of the woman he worshipped was fixed upon him he raised his head; and
then their eyes met for a moment with an expression of infinite
gentleness, the mournful gentleness of their heroic love.
"_Mon Dieu_!" said she, "I know your merits, Monsieur l'Abbe, and I won't
refuse my help to one of your good works."
Then she went off for a moment, and returned with a card on which she had
written that she supported with all her heart Monsieur l'Abbe Froment in
the steps he was taking. And he thanked her and went off delighted, as if
he carried yet a fresh hope of salvation from that drawing-room where, as
he retired, gloom and silence once more seemed to fall on that old lady
and her last faithful friends gathered around the fire, last relics of a
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