“If one of your boy's names had been Napoleon, or Joseph, or even Joachim, I could congratulate you with a better heart. As you have thought proper to name him Charles Henri Armand I am confirmed in my conviction that you never loved the emperor. The thought of that sublime hero chained to a rock in the middle of a savage ocean makes life of so little value that I would receive with positive joy your instructions to blow my brains out. From suicide I consider myself in honour debarred. But I keep a loaded pistol in my drawer.” Madame la Générale D'Hubert lifted up her hands in horror after perusing that letter. “You see? He won't be reconciled,” said her husband. “We must take care that he never, by any chance, learns where the money he lives on comes from. It would be simply appalling.” “You are a _brave homme_, Armand,” said Madame la Générale appreciatively. “My dear, I had the right to blow his brains out--strictly speaking. But as I did not we can't let him starve. He has been deprived of his pension for 'breach of military discipline' when he broke bounds to fight his last duel with me. He's crippled with rheumatism. We are bound to take care of him to the end of his days. And, after all, I am indebted to him for the radiant discovery that you loved me a little--you sly person. Ha! Ha! Two miles, running all the way!... It is extraordinary how all through this affair that man has managed to engage my deeper feelings.” THE END End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Point Of Honor, by Joseph Conrad