Claire made a step towards her. "Meet it? Do you mean own that he has
done it?"
Nathalie encountered her eye, her voice, without quailing. She was
vaguely sorry for these others who were suffering; but all her emotions
fastened themselves upon her husband, and remembering some words he had
let drop, she started. "Where is Leon?" she cried.
"With his mother. You need not be afraid for him," said Claire,
scornfully; "he has always taken care of himself, and he will do so to
his dying day. I don't know why I was such a fool as to be alarmed at
hearing the advice you are going to bestow upon him, for Leon will never
face a disagreeable so long as he can find a means of slipping round it.
You may do your worst. Of course, you can't be expected to feel what
we feel: the disgrace--the horrible shame--the--" She stopped, choked.
Nathalie looked at her, neither assenting nor denying, and, after a
moment's pause, the other began again:
"It must be crushed down, even if Poissy has to go. The name comes
first. This man--it is true, is it not, that he will accept money!"
"Do you know what you are saying!" said her sister-in-law, speaking in a
low, even voice. "If Leon did what you demand, he would be owning
himself the thief they call him. He took the money, but it was not to
keep; he wrote to Monsieur de Cadanet and told him what he had done, and
promised to pay it back, and did it. He owes nothing."
"You believe this!"
"Yes. He has told me all, now," she answered, in the same tone. There
was something in it which for the moment impressed Claire; but she
presently returned to her conviction.
"If it is true, it is only a matter of degree," she said, her eyes
dilating.
"It is everything," rejoined Nathalie, firmly.
"Take what comfort you can from it, then. What I think is that, true or
not, unless Leon can prove it, it will be of no use in warding off the
blow. That is the only thing which remains to us. It must not fall.
Do you hear! It must not fall."
"God knows!" She turned away with a sigh, but there was no irresolution
in her face. The sun still shone outside; above the grey stone the
clear blue was beginning to whiten; so high as to be mere specks, the
swallows circled. Suddenly Claire broke into a laugh--a high-pitched
laugh, not good to hear.
"A De Beaudrillart tried for theft!" she exclaimed. "In a common dock,
I imagine! What a fine event for the world! Tours, too. Why, Tours
would have something to talk about for quite a year." Her voice changed
again to something harsh, fierce. "You are not to tell your father, do
you hear! Do you mean to say that you have done so already?"
Nathalie looked at her gravely.
"Hush!" she said. "There is no use in saying these things. My father
has guessed it, and I think it is breaking his heart."
"Oh," cried Claire, wildly, "it only wanted this! Monsieur Bourget
knows, and it is breaking Monsieur Bourget's heart! We Beaudrillarts
can bear it, but Monsieur Bourget's heart is breaking! Do you suppose
that we are going to endure this degrading pity? I tell you that
anything--death itself--would be better!"
Her white face was distorted, changed; yet if any one had been there to
make the comparison, they might have detected a deeper suffering behind
Mme. Leon's silence. She stood mute, her sad young eyes looking into
the unknown, her delicate lips compressed. Claire suddenly felt the
unconquerable power of calmness. Her taunts were useless. She turned
and rushed from the room. Outside on the stairs were two men, and her
first impression was that perhaps they were officers of justice come to
seize Leon, until she saw that one was her brother himself and the other
M. Georges.