"What was it the
Jesuits said? . . . corrupt and degenerate? Yes, those were the words.
'Tis true; and this disease of idleness is as infectious as the plague.
And this son of mine, he is following the game path through which I
passed . . . to this, palsy and senility! Oh, the subtile poisons, the
intoxicating Hippocrenes I taught him how to drink! And now he turns and
casts the dregs into my face. But as I said, I make no plaint; I do not
lack courage. A pleasant pastime it was, this worldly lessoning; but I
forgot that he was partly a reproduction of his Catholic mother; that
where I stood rugged he would fall; that he did not possess ardor that is
without fire, love that is without sentiment. . . ."
A maudlin voice took up the Chevalier's song . . .
"_When Ma'm'selle drinks from her satin shoe
With a Bacchante's love for a Bacchic brew!_"
"Reparation, Madame?" went on the marquis. "Such things are beyond
reparation. And yet it is possible to save him. But how? Behold! you
inspire me. I will save him. I will pardon his insolence, his contempt,
his indifference, which, having my bone, was bred in him.
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