ever seen me do it before?"

Her voice was even and quiet--as though she had made up her mind on a
course, and meant to carry it through to the end.

"No, I never saw you look at a man like that, and everything is as you
say, but--" his voice suddenly became uneven and higher--pitched and a
little hoarse, "but he is English, he is an actor--only that; and he is a
Protestant."

"Only that?" she asked, for the tone of his voice was such as one would
use in speaking of a toad or vermin, and she could not bear it. "Is it a
disgrace to be any one of those things?"

"The Barbilles have been here for two hundred years; they have been
French Catholics since the time of"--he was not quite sure--"since the
time of Louis XI.," he added at a venture, and then paused, overcome by
his own rashness.

"Yes, that is a long time," she said, "but what difference does it make?
We are just what we are now, and as if there never had been a Baron of
Beaugard. What is there against Gerard except that he is an actor, that
he is English, and that he is a Protestant? Is there anything?"

"Sacre, is it not enough? An actor, what is that--to pretend to be
someone else and not to be yourself!"

"It would be better for a great many people to be someone else rather
than themselves--for nothing; and he does it for money."