It is a weak and dangerous
sentimentalism which would protect a woman of commerce against the good
name of any man. The financial settlement makes her a party in a
contract, nothing more, and acquits the payer of all further
responsibility. She has no good name to protect; she has asked for
nothing but money; she is a public character, whom to shield would be a
thankless task. When this Reynolds woman added the abomination of
blackmail to her trade, and further attempted the ruin of the man who
had shown her nothing but generosity and consideration, it need hardly
be added that Hamilton would have been a sentimental fool to have
hesitated on any ground but detestation of a public scandal.
He never traced the betrayal of a secret which all concerned had
promised to keep inviolate, but he had his suspicions. Mrs. Croix, now
living in a large house on the Bowling Green, was the animated and
resourceful centre of Jacobinism. She wore a red cap to the theatre and
a tri-coloured cockade on the street. Her _salon_ was the headquarters
of the Republican leaders, and many a plot was hatched in her inspiring
presence.
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