He had
considered this; he had been given ample leisure in which to consider
it during those long, turbulent hours in which he had been forced to
wait, because it would have been almost impossible to have won across
that seething city, and certainly unwise to have attempted so to do.
He had reached the conclusion that by consenting to go to her rescue
at such a time he stood committed to a piece of purely sentimental
quixotry. The quittances which the Mayor of Meudon had exacted from
him before he would issue the necessary safe-conducts placed the
whole of his future, perhaps his very life, in jeopardy. And he
had consented to do this not for the sake of a reality, but out of
regard for an idea - he who all his life had avoided the false lure
of worthless and hollow sentimentality.
Thus thought Andre-Louis as he considered her now so searchingly,
finding it, naturally enough, a matter of extraordinary interest to
look consciously upon his mother for the first time at the age of
eight-and-twenty.
From her he looked at last at Jacques, who remained at attention,
waiting by the open door.
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