without asking for more money than you had to give me. I showed him the
pawn tickets, the receipts of the people to whom I had sold what I could
not pawn; I told him of my resolve to part with my furniture in order
to pay my debts, and live with you without being a too heavy expense. I
told him of our happiness, of how you had shown me the possibility of
a quieter and happier life, and he ended by giving in to the evidence,
offering me his hand, and asking pardon for the way in which he had at
first approached me.

Then he said to me:

"So, madame, it is not by remonstrances or by threats, but by
entreaties, that I must endeavour to obtain from you a greater sacrifice
than you have yet made for my son."

I trembled at this beginning.

Your father came over to me, took both my hands, and continued in an
affectionate voice:

"My child, do not take what I have to say to you amiss; only remember
that there are sometimes in life cruel necessities for the heart, but
that they must be submitted to. You are good, your soul has generosity
unknown to many women who perhaps despise you, and are less worthy than
you. But remember that there is not only the mistress, but the family;
that besides love there are duties; that to the age of passion succeeds
the age when man, if he is to be respected, must plant himself solidly
in a serious position. My son has no fortune, and yet he is ready to
abandon to you the legacy of his mother. If he accepted from you the
sacrifice which you are on the point of making, his honour and dignity
would require him to give you, in exchange for it, this income, which
would always put you out of danger of adversity. But he can not accept
this sacrifice, because the world, which does not know you, would give a
wrong interpretation to this acceptance, and such an interpretation must
not tarnish the name which we bear. No one would consider whether
Armand loves you, whether you love him, whether this mutual love means
happiness to him and redemption to you; they would see only one thing,
that Armand Duval allowed a kept woman (forgive me, my child, for what
I am forced to say to you) to sell all she had for him. Then the day of
reproaches and regrets would arrive, be sure, for you or for others, and
you would both bear a chain that you could not sever. What would you do
then? Your youth would be lost, my son's future destroyed; and I, his
father, should receive from only one of my children the recompen