Instead of beginning on the accounts as
he should have done, he remained at the mercy of his perplexities.
"One thing is evident," he said to himself; "she hasn't six millions;
but that's not the point--"
Six days later, Modeste received the following letter:
Mademoiselle,--You are not a D'Este. The name is a feigned one to
conceal your own. Do I owe the revelations which you solicit to a
person who is untruthful about herself? Question for question: Are
you of an illustrious family? or a noble family? or a middle-class
family? Undoubtedly ethics and morality cannot change; they are
one: but obligations vary in the different states of life. Just as
the sun lights up a scene diversely and produces differences which
we admire, so morality conforms social duty to rank, to position.
The peccadillo of a soldier is a crime in a general, and
vice-versa. Observances are not alike in all cases. They are not
the same for the gleaner in the field, for the girl who sews at
fifteen sous a day, for the daughter of a petty shopkeeper, for
the young bourgoise, for the child of a rich merchant, for the
heiress of a noble family, for a daughter of the house of Este.
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