"Judithe," said the dowager, after watching her moody face thoughtfully, "my child, I should be happier if you banished, so far as possible, that story from your memory. It will have a tendency to narrow your views. You will always have a prejudice against a class for the wrong done by an individual. Put it aside! It is a question outside of your life, outside of it always unless your sympathies persist in dragging you into such far-away abuses. We have the Paris poor, if you must think and do battle for the unfortunate. And as to the American, consider. He must have been very young, perhaps was influenced by older heads. He may not have realized--" The Marquise smiled, but shook her head. "You are eloquent, Maman, but you do not convince me. He must be very handsome to have won you so completely in one interview. For me, I do not believe in his ignorance of the evil nor in his youthful innocence. I think of the women who for generations have been the victims of such innocence, and I should like to see your handsome young cadet suffer for his share of it!" "Tah!" and the dowager put out her hand with a gesture of protest and a tone of doubt in her voice. "You say so Judithe, but you could not see any one suffer, not even the criminal. You would come to his defense with some philosophical reason for the sin--some theory of pre-natal influence to account for his depravity. Collectively you condemn them; individually you would pardon every one rather than see them suffer--I mean, than stand by and actually see the suffering." "I could not pardon that man," insisted the Marquise; "Ugh! I feel as if for him I could have the hand of Judithe as well as the name." "And treat him a-la-Holofernes? My child, sometimes I dislike that name of Judithe for you; I do not want you to have a shadow of the character it suggests. I shall regret the name if it carries such dark influences with it. As for the man--forget him!" "With all my heart, if he keeps out of my way," agreed the Marquise; "but if the old Jewish god of battles ever delivers him into my hands--!" She paused and drew a deep breath. "Well?" "Well--I should show him mercy such as the vaunted law-giver, the chosen of the Lord, the man of meekness, showed to the conquered Midianites--no more!" and her laugh had less of music in it than usual. "I instinctively hate the man, Kenneth McVeigh--Kenneth McVeigh!--even the name is abhorrent since the day I heard of that awful barter and sale. It seems strange, Maman, does it not, when I never saw him in my life--never expected to hear his name again--that it is to our house he has found his way in Paris; to our house, where an unknown woman abhors him. Ah!" and she flung the card from her. "You are right, Maman; I am too often conquered by my own moods and feelings. The American need be nothing to us."