“I exult over it,” was the prompt, and almost coarse answer. “Why should you be surprised at this? Was it not my own father who first repudiated me—drove me from men of my own class, and sent me downward to rule among the canaille. Was it not my own mother who denounced her son as unworthy of companionship with highborn women?” “No, no!” interposed the old noble. “Your mother was blind to your faults, gentle with your sins. She, at least, deserves no censure at your hands. Many a tear has she shed over the alienation which was not her fault.” Mirabeau drew a hand across his eyes, then dashed it down, as if impatient with himself for the feeling that disturbed him. “My mother is an angel,” he said; “God bless her!” “Night and morning she blesses you,” answered the old man, in a broken voice. “But I do not deserve it.” “No,” said the old man; “the best men on earth rarely deserve the blessings good mothers are ready to lavish on their sons.” “Spare me—spare me! If I have given her pain, it has fallen back on myself with many a sharp heartache. But for her I should, undoubtedly, have been a worse man.” A faint smile quivered across the thin lips of the old noble; some sarcastic reply was evidently trembling there. Mirabeau saw it, and his face flushed. “You smile; you think it impossible that I could descend to a deeper level.” “Was it not a terrible stride downward when you left our old ancestral home for the Jacobin clubs and gambling saloons of Paris?” “Granted; but what sent me there?” “Your own predisposition to low company.” “Rather the parsimony of my father, who withheld the means by which a man of birth could maintain his position.” The old noble drew his slight figure up with a dash of angry pride. “Young man,” he said, “let me tell you now, if you have never learned it before, that my estate is yet cumbered with legal obligations, every dollar of which went to pay your debts. Years of economy have been forced upon us, that the honor of my name might be redeemed.” Mirabeau, flushed and indignant, made a rude gesture of dissent, at which the old man turned pale; for the manners which his son had slowly adopted from low associations seemed threatening and coarse to a man of his superior refinement. “Mirabeau! Is this gesture intended as a denial of my assertion, or is that hand clenched as a threat of violence?” “I scarcely knew,” answered the count, “that my hand was clenched; we learn these things in our rough life here, and adopt the manners of the people with their sentiments. But this is certain, I did not intend to contradict a word you were saying. If I was rude, it was from impatience with myself that I had given you so much trouble, and with fate that cast my lot among gentlemen, without giving me the means of maintaining a position with the best.”