a grave suspicion.
"Sir," said she to Rodin, "I always confess to the persons I esteem the
doubts they may have inspired, so that they may justify themselves, and
excuse me, if I am wrong."

Rodin looked at Mdlle. de Cardoville with surprise, as if mentally
calculating the suspicions than she might entertain, and replied, after a
moment's silence: "You are perhaps thinking of my journey to Cardoville,
of my base proposals to your good and worthy bailiff? Oh! if you--"

"No, no, sir," said Adrienne, interrupting him; "you made that confession
spontaneously, and I quite understand, that, blinded with regard to M.
d'Aigrigny, you passively executed instructions repugnant to your
delicacy. But how comes it, that, with your incontestable merits, you
have so long; occupied so mean a position in his service?"

"It is true," said Rodin, with a smile; "that must impress you
unfavorably, my dear young lady; for a man of any capacity, who remains
long in an inferior condition, has evidently some radical vice, some bad
or base passion--"

"It is generally true, sir."

"And personally true--with regard to myself."

"What, sir! do you make this avowal?"

"Alas! I confess that I have a bad passion, to which, for forty years, I
have sacrificed all chances of attaining to a better position."

"And this passion, sir?"

"Since I must make the unpleasant avowal, this passion is indolence--yes,
indolence--the horror of all activity of mind, of all moral
responsibility, of taking the lead in anything. With the twelve hundred
francs that Abbe d'Aigrigny gave me, I was the happiest man in the world;
I trusted to the nobleness of his views; his thoughts became mine, his
wishes mine. My work once finished, I returned to my poor little chamber,
I lighted my fire, I dined on vegetables--then, taking up some book of
philosophy, little known, and dreaming over it, I gave free course to my
imagination, which, restrained all the day long, carried me through
numberless theories to a delicious Utopia. Then, from the eminences of my
intelligence, lifted up Lord knows whither, by the audacity of my
thoughts, I seemed to look down upon my master, and upon the great men of
the earth. This fever lasted for three or four hours, after which I had a
good sleep; and, the next morning, I went lightly to my work, secure of
my daily bread, without cares for the future, living content with little,
waiting with impatience for the delights of my solitary eve