'Tis very well for those elderly folks, you see, my
sister, and for Madelon--for hers is an elderly mind in a youthful body;
but for a young man full of hope and gaiety and activity--bah! It would
be of all living deaths the worst. From the galleys there is always the
hope of escaping--an underground passage, burrowed out with one's
finger-nails in the dead of the night--a work lasting twenty years or so,
but with a feeble star of hope always glimmering at the end of the
passage. But from the salon, and mamma, and the poodle, and the good,
unctuous, lazy old director, and papa's apoplectic snoring, and the
plaintive little songs and monotonous embroideries of one's wife, there
would be no escape. Ah, bah!"
Gustave shuddered, and the two women shuddered as they heard him. The
prospect was by no means promising; but Madame Lenoble and her daughter
did not utterly despair. Gustave's heart was disengaged. That was a great
point; and for the rest, surely persuasion might do much.
Then came that phenomenon seen very often in this life--a
generous-minded, right-thinking young man talked into a position which of
all others is averse from his own inclinations. The mother persuaded, the
sister pleaded, the father dwelt dismally upon the poverty of Beaubocage,
the wealth of Cotenoir. It was the story of auld Robin Gray reversed.
Gustave perceived that his refusal to avail himself of this splendid
destiny would be a bitter and lasting grief to these people who loved him
so fondly--whom he loved as fondly in return.
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