You must have
forgotten that Rose told me everything, Monsieur--Paul!"
She had struck the right place this time, and with such precision
that M. de Coralth turned livid, and made a furious gesture, as if
he were about to fell her to the ground. "Ah, take care!" he
exclaimed; "take care!"
But his rage speedily subsided, and with his usual indifferent
manner, and in a bantering tone, he said: "Well, what of that? Do
you fancy that the world doesn't already suspect what you could
reveal? People have suspected me of being even worse than I am.
When you proclaim on the housetops that I am an adventurer, folks
will only laugh at you, and I shall be none the worse for it. A
matter that would crush a dozen men like Pascal Ferailleur would
not injure me in the least. I am accustomed to it. I must have
luxury and enjoyment, everything that is pleasant and beautiful--
and to procure all this, I do my very best. It is true that I
don't derive my income from my estate in Brie; but I have plenty
of money, and that is the essential thing. Besides, it is so
difficult to earn a livelihood nowadays, and the love of luxury is
so intense that no one knows at night what he may do--or, rather,
what he won't do--the next day. And last, but not least, the
people who ought to be despised are so numerous that contempt is
an impossibility. A Parisian who happened to be so absurdly
pretentious as to refuse to shake hands with such of his
acquaintances as were not irreproachable characters, might walk
for hours on the Boulevards without finding an occasion to take
his hands out of his pockets.
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