she had said it--have him for the time he had to live than not at all.
Position? What was his position? Cast off by his family, forgotten by
his old friends, in debt, penniless--let position be hanged! Self-
preservation was the first law. What was the difference between this
girl and himself? Morals? She was better than himself, anyhow. She had
genuine passions, and her sins would be in behalf of those genuine
passions. He had kicked over the moral traces many a time from absolute
selfishness. She had clean blood in her veins, she was good-looking,
she had a quick wit, she was an excellent horse-woman--what then? If she
wasn't so "well bred," that was a matter of training and opportunity
which had never quite been hers. What was he himself? A loafer, "a
deuced unfortunate loafer," but still a loafer. He had no trade and no
profession. Confound it! how much better off, and how much better in
reality, were these people who had trades and occupations. In the vigour
and lithe activity of that girl's body was the force of generations of
honest workers. He argued and thought--as every intelligent man in his
position would have done--until he had come into the old life again, and
into the presence of the old advantages and temptations!

Christine pulled up for a moment on a little hill, and waved her whip.
He shook his handkerchief from the window. That was their prearranged
signal. He shook it until she had driven away beyond the hill and was
lost to sight, and still stood there at the window looking out.

Presently Madame Lavilette appeared in the garden below, and he was sure,
from the way she glanced up at the window, and from her position in the
shrubbery, that she had seen the signal. Madame did not look displeased.
On the contrary, though an alliance with Christine now seemed unlikely,
because of the state of Ferrol's health and his religion and nationality,
it pleased her to think that it might have been.