Mauprat
"What authority, abbé, if you please?"
"The authority which our customs allow one gentleman to exercise over his equal honour and the sword."
"Oh, abbé! You too, then, are a man with a thirst for blood. Well, that is precisely what I have hitherto tried to avoid, and what I will avoid, though it cost me my life and honour. I do not wish that there should be any fight between these two men."
"I understand: one of the two is very rightly dear to you. But evidently in this duel it is not M. de la Marche who would be in danger."
"Then it would be Bernard," cried Edmée. "Well, I should hate M. de la Marche, if he insisted on a duel with this poor boy, who only knows how to handle a stick or a sling. How can such ideas occur to you, abbé? You must really loathe this unfortunate Bernard. And fancy me getting my husband to cut his throat as a return for having saved my life at the risk of his own. No, no; I will not suffer any one either to challenge him, or humiliate him, or persecute him. He is my cousin; he is a Mauprat; he is almost a brother. I will not let him be driven out of this house. Rather will I go myself."
"These are very generous sentiments, Edmée," answered the abbé. "But with what warmth you express them! I stand confounded; and, if I were not afraid of offending you, I should confess that this solicitude for young Mauprat suggests to me a strange thought."
"Well, what is it, then?" said Edmée, with a certain brusqueness.
"If you insist, of course I will tell you: you seem to take a deeper interest in this young man than in
168
