serious voice, as he looked at Adrienne
with emotion, "would be to carry with me the conviction, that you did me
the justice to believe, that, on merely reading your interview with the
Princess de Saint-Dizier, I recognized at once qualities quite unexampled
in our day, in a young person of your age and condition."

"Ah, sir!" said Adrienne, with a smile, "do not think yourself obliged to
return so soon the sincere praises that I bestowed on your superiority of
mind. I should be better pleased with ingratitude."

"Oh, no! I do not flatter you, my dear young lady. Why should I? We may
probably never meet again. I do not flatter you; I understand you--that's
all--and what will seem strange to you, is, that your appearance
complete, the idea which I had already formed of you, my dear young lady,
in reading your interview with your aunt: and some parts of your
character, hitherto obscure to me, are now fully displayed."

"Really, sir, you astonish me more and more."

"I can't help it! I merely describe my impressions. I can now explain
perfectly, for example, your passionate love of the beautiful, your eager
worship of the refinements of the senses, your ardent aspirations for a
better state of things, your courageous contempt of many degrading and
servile customs, to which woman is condemned; yes, now I understand the
noble pride with which you contemplate the mob of vain, self-sufficient,
ridiculous men, who look upon woman as a creature destined for their
service, according to the laws made after their own not very handsome
image. In the eyes of these hedge-tyrants, woman, a kind of inferior
being to whom a council of cardinals deigned to grant a soul by a
majority of two voices, ought to think herself supremely happy in being
the servant of these petty pachas, old at thirty, worn-out, used up,
weary with excesses, wishing only for repose, and seeking, as they say,
to make an end of it, which they set about by marrying some poor girl,
who is on her side desirous to make a beginning."

Mdlle. de Cardoville would certainly have smiled at these satirical
remarks, if she had not been greatly struck by hearing Rodin express in
such appropriate terms her own ideas, though it was the first time in her
life that she saw this dangerous man. Adrienne forgot, or rather, she was
not aware, that she had to deal with a Jesuit of rare intelligence,
uniting the information and the mysterious resources of the police-spy
with the pro