"Oh, German idealism—we know what that means! We've no use for their superiority; let them carry it elsewhere—let them leave us alone. Why do they thrust themselves in upon us and set old wounds throbbing by their detested presence? We don't go near them, or ever wish to hear their ugly names or behold their visages de bois; therefore the most rudimentary good taste, the tact one would expect even from naked savages, might suggest to them to seek their amusements elsewhere. But their taste, their tact—I can scarcely trust myself to speak!"
Madame de Brindes did speak, however, at considerable further length and with a sincerity of passion which left one quite without arguments. There was no argument to meet the fact that Vendemer's attitude wounded her, wounded her daughter, jusqu' au fond de l'âme, that it represented for them abysses of shame and suffering, and that for himself it meant a whole future compromised, a whole public alienated. It was vain, doubtless, to talk of such things; if people didn't feel them, if they hadn't the
