"You will not I hope be so evil-minded, monsieur, as to misunderstand my sentiments towards Mademoiselle Clairville, whom I have known from her childhood. I am only saying to her what I have felt for a long time--I would be the means of saving her from herself, from such friends as you, and from the ills attendant on the profession she has chosen. My affection for her is solely that of the parish priest who has watched her career and felt saddened by it, yet who would reward evil by good."
"How would you reward her? By making love to her?"
"I have been in communication with the Mother Superior of a convent near Three Rivers, my birthplace. There is a fine appointment there, waiting for a person of talent--gifted--to instruct in elocution and possibly music. I thought----"
"You thought it would suit me!" cried Pauline, in a frenzy of disgust and irritation. "Me! For the stage and its triumphs a convent with simpering nuns! For Paris with its gay shops and drives, the town of Three Rivers, Province of Quebec, _dans le Bas Canada_! Oh! I see myself, thank you, in that _galère_, I assure you! No--no--that honourable extinction is not for me yet awhile. _Après, mon pere, après--après_, I may return and be glad of the haven, but not now."
"The two minutes are up," said Crabbe laconically. "I'm sorry to turn you out in such an afternoon, Father Rielle, but it is best for you and for mademoiselle. The hail's not quite so big as it was. I advise you to go at once."
The priest, divining some understanding between Crabbe and Pauline, and gradually calling to mind certain episodes of several years back, glanced from one to the other.
"I am not sure that I am not myself in the way," he said grimly. "Such rapid and excessive sensitiveness on behalf of Mlle. Clairville is creditable, but scarcely, I should think, its own reward."
"Do you deny that your being here is a menace to Miss Clairville's peace and that you--you a frocked and tonsured priest--have addressed words of love to her? If I did not utterly despise you, I should kick you out into the storm."
"You need do neither. I do not deny that I love Miss Clairville; I deny only that I have menaced or threatened her in any form. I say this to you--man of unclean, unholy habits--the priest is human. He is as God made him. He lives or dies, loves or hates by the will of God. When I look at Miss Clairville, I think of her as the possible helpmeet of my life, had it been spent in the service of this world instead of in the service of God. I think of her, monsieur, even reverently, purely, as the possible mother of my children."