They went on walking together side by side. Gontran's demeanor exasperated Paul, who replied:
"If I were not your friend, I would say some very severe things to you."
"And for my part I would not permit you to say them."
"Look here, listen to me, my friend! This young girl excites my pity. She was weeping a little while ago."
"Bah! she was weeping! Why, that's a compliment to me!"
"Come, don't trifle! What do you mean to do?"
"Just consider! You have gone so far with her that you have compromised her. The other day you told your sister and me that you were thinking of marrying her."
Gontran stopped in his walk, and in that mocking tone through which a menace showed itself:
"My sister and you would do better not to bother yourselves about other people's love affairs. I told you that this girl pleases me well enough, and that if I happened to marry her, I would be doing a wise and reasonable act. That's all. Now it turns out that to-day I like the elder girl better. I have changed my mind. That's a thing that happens to everyone."
Then, looking him full in the face: "What is it that you do yourself when you cease to care about a woman? Do you look after her?"
Paul Bretigny, astonished, sought to penetrate the profound meaning, the hidden sense, of these words. A little feverishness also mounted into his brain. He said in a violent tone:
"I tell you again this is not a question of a hussy or a married woman, but of a young girl whom you have deceived, if not by promises, at least by your advances. That is not, mark you, the part of a man of honor!--or of an honest man!"
Gontran, pale, his voice quivering, interrupted him: "Hold your tongue! You have already said too much--and I have listened to too much of this. In my turn, if I were not your friend I--I might show you that I have a short temper. Another word, and there is an end of everything between us forever!"
Then, slowly weighing his words, and flinging them in Paul's face, he said: "I have no explanations to offer you--I might rather have to demand them from you. There is a certain kind of indelicacy of which it is not the part of a man of honor or of an honest man to be guilty--which might take many forms--from which friendship ought to keep certain people--and which love does not excuse."