the candles, and their lines of black smoke wavered horizontally
through the air. Monsieur le Marquis waited for the outpouring of
thanks, the protestations of joy, the bending of this proud and haughty
spirit. While waiting he did not look at his son; rather he busied
himself with the stained ruffles of his sleeve. The pause grew. It
was so long that the marquis was compelled finally to look up. In his
cabinet at Périgny he had a small bronze statue of the goddess Ate: the
scowling eyes, the bent brows, the widened nostrils, the half-visible
row of teeth, all these he saw in the face towering above him.

"So that is all you have to say? How easily and complacently you say
it! 'Monsieur, the honor I robbed you of I bring back. It is
worthless, either to you or to me, it is true. Nevertheless, thank me
and bid me be gone!' And that is all you have to say!"

The marquis sat back in his chair, thunderstruck.

"It is nothing, then," went on the son, leaning across the table and
speaking in those thin tones of one who represses fury; "it is nothing
that men have laughed behind my back, insulted me to my face? It is
nothing to have trampled on my illusions and bittered the cup of life?
It is nothing that I have suffered for three months as they in hell
suffer for eternity? It is nothing that my trust in humanity is gone?
All these things are inconsiderable! In a moment of anger you told me
this unholy lie, without cause, without definite purpose, without
justice, carelessly, as a pastime?"

"Not as a pastime, not carelessly; rather with a definite purpose, to
bring you to your senses. You were becoming an insolent drunkard."