It was without her daughter that Madame de Brindes received me, when I obeyed her summons, in her scrap of a _quatrième_ in the Rue de Miromesnil.
"Ah, _cher monsieur_, how could you have permitted such a horror--how could you have given it the countenance of your roof, of your influence?" There were tears in her eyes, and I don't think that for the moment I have ever been more touched by a reproach. But I pulled myself together sufficiently to affirm my faith as well as to disengage my responsibility. I explained that there was no horror to me in the matter, that if I was not a German neither was I a Frenchman, and that all I had before me was two young men inflamed by a great idea and nobly determined to work together to give it a great form.
"A great idea--to go over to _ces gens-là?_"
"To put yourself on their side--to throw yourself into the arms of those who hate us--to fall into their abominable trap!"
"What do you call their abominable trap?"
"Their false _bonhomie_, the very impudence of their intrigues, their profound, scientific deceit and their determination to get the advantage of us by exploiting our generosity."
"You attribute to such a man as Heidenmauer too many motives and too many calculations. He's quite ideally superior!"
"Oh, German idealism--we know what that means! We've no use for their superiority; let them carry it elsewhere--let them leave us alone. Why do they thrust themselves in upon us and set old wounds throbbing by their detested presence? We don't go near _them_, or ever wish to hear their ugly names or behold their _visages de bois_; therefore the most rudimentary good taste, the tact one would expect even from naked savages, might suggest to them to seek their amusements elsewhere. But _their_ taste, _their_ tact--I can scarcely trust myself to speak!"
Madame de Brindes did speak however at considerable further length and with a sincerity of passion which left one quite without arguments. There was no argument to meet the fact that Vendemer's attitude wounded her, wounded her daughter, _jusqu'au fond de l'âme_, that it represented for them abysses of shame and suffering and that for himself it meant a whole future compromised, a whole public alienated. It was vain doubtless to talk of such things; if people didn't _feel_ them, if they hadn't the fibre of loyalty, the high imagination of honour, all explanations, all supplications were but a waste of noble emotion. M. Vendemer's perversity was monstrous--she had had a sickening discussion with him. What she desired of me was to make one last appeal to him, to put the solemn truth before him, to try to bring him back to sanity. It was as if he had temporarily lost his reason. It was to be made clear to him, _par exemple_, that unless he should recover it Mademoiselle de Brindes would unhesitatingly withdraw from her engagement.