What do you intend to do? How will you gain a
livelihood? People must have food, and clothes, and a roof to
shelter them. These things cost money. And where will you obtain
it--you who rebel at the very word work? Ah! if I had only
listened to M. Patterson. He was not blind like myself. He was
always telling me that I was spoiling you, and ruining your future
by giving you so much money. Do you know that you have spent more
than fifty thousand francs during the past two years? How have you
squandered them? Have you been to the law-school a dozen times?
No. But you can be seen at the races, at the opera, in the
fashionable restaurants, and at every place of amusement where a
young man can squander money. And who are your associates?
Dissipated and heartless idlers, grooms, gamblers, and abandoned
women."
A sneer from M. Wilkie interrupted her. To think that any one
should dare to attack his friends, his tastes, and his pleasures.
Such a thing was not to be tolerated. "This is astonishing--
astonishing, upon my word!" said he. "You moralizing! that's
really too good! I should like a few minutes to laugh; it is too
ridiculous!"
Was he really conscious of the cruelty of his ironical words? The
blow was so terrible that Madame d'Argeles staggered beneath it.
She was prepared for anything and everything except this insult
from her son.
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