"So if imminent peril menaced me, instead of coming to my aid you would
desert me? You would hide yourself, saying, 'Let him perish, so that I
be saved!' Speak! Would you do this?"

She averted her face and made no reply. She could not force herself to
utter an untruth; and she was unwilling to answer: "I would act as you
are acting." She waited for her father's decision.

"If I should comply with your request, Maurice," said M. Lacheneur, "in
less than three days you would curse me, and ruin us by some outburst
of anger. You love Marie-Anne. Could you see, unmoved, the frightful
position in which she is placed? Remember, she must not discourage the
addresses either of Chanlouineau or of the Marquis de Sairmeuse. You
regard me--oh, I know as well as you do that it is a shameful and odious
role that I impose upon her--that she is compelled to play a part
in which she will lose a young girl's most precious possession--her
reputation."

Maurice did not wince. "So be it," he said, calmly. "Marie-Anne's fate
will be that of all women who have devoted themselves to the political
advancement of the man whom they love, be he father, brother, or lover.
She will be slandered, insulted, calumniated. What does it matter? She
may continue her task. I consent to it, for I shall never doubt her, and
I shall know how to hold my peace. If we succeed, she shall be my wife;
if we fail----"

The gesture which concluded the sentence said more strongly than any
protestations, that he was ready, resigned to anything.