! If I have said nothing until now, it is
because I did not as yet despair of your heart; because I hoped that
you would recover some feeling of decency. But no, nothing. With
time, your last scruples seem to have vanished. Once you begged
humbly; now you demand rudely. How soon will you resort to blows?"

"Gilberte!" stammered the poor fellow, "Gilberte!"

She interrupted him:

"Money!" she went on, "always, and without time, you must have money;
no matter whence it comes, nor what it costs. If, at least, you
had to justify your expenses, the excuse of some great passion, or
of some object, were it absurd, ardently pursued! But I defy you
to confess upon what degrading pleasures you lavish our humble
economies. I defy you to tell us what you mean to do with the sum
that you demand to-night,--that sum for which you would have our
mother stoop to beg the assistance of a shop-keeper, to whom we
would be compelled to reveal the secret of our shame."

Touched by the frightful humiliation of her son:

"He is so unhappy!" stammered Mme. Favoral.

"He unhappy!" she exclaimed. "What, then, shall
we say of us? and, above all, what shall you say of yourself, mother?
Unhappy!--he, a man, who has liberty and strength, who may undertake
every thing, attempt any thing, dare any thing. Ah, I wish I were
a man! I! I would be a man as there are some, as I know some; and
I would have avenged you, O beloved mother! long, long ago, from
father; and I would have begun to repay you all the good you have
done me."

Mme. Favoral was sobbing.

"I beg of you," she murmured, "spare him."

"Be it so," said the young girl. "But you must allow me to tell him
that it is not for his sake that I devote my youth to a mercenary
labor. It is for you, adored mother, that you may have the joy to
give him what he asks, since it is your only joy."

Maxence shuddered under the breath of that superb indignation. That
frightful humiliation, he felt that he deserved it only too much.
He understood the justice of these cruel reproaches. And, as his
heart had not yet spoiled with the contact of his boon companions,
as he was weak, rather than wicked, as the sentiments which are the
honor and pride of a man were not dead within him.

"Ah! you are a brave sister, Gilberte," he exclaimed; "and what you
have just done is well. You have been harsh, but not as much as I
deserve. Thanks for your courage, which will give me back mine.
Yes,