decisive words of Rodin, looked at her old lover, with an air that
seemed to say, "He is right;"--"sir, you are more than severe in your
judgment; and, notwithstanding the deference I owe to you, I must
observe, that I am not accustomed--"

"There are many other things to which you are not accustomed," said
Rodin, harshly interrupting the reverend father; "but you will accustom
yourself to them. You have hitherto had a false idea of your own value.
There is the old leaven of the soldier and the worlding fermenting within
you, which deprives your reason of the coolness, lucidity, and
penetration that it ought to possess. You have been a fine military
officer, brisk and gay, foremost in wars and festivals, with pleasures
and women. These things have half worn you out. You will never be
anything but a subaltern; you have been thoroughly tested. You will
always want that vigor and concentration of mind which governs men and
events. That vigor and concentration of mind I have--and do you know why?
It is because, solely devoted to the service of the Company, I have
always been ugly, dirty, unloved, unloving--I have all my manhood about
me!"

In pronouncing these words, full of cynical pride, Rodin was truly
fearful. The princess de Saint-Dizier thought him almost handsome by his
energy and audacity.

Father d'Aigrigny, feeling himself overawed, invincibly and inexorably,
by this diabolical being, made a last effort to resist and exclaimed,
"Oh! sir, these boastings are no proofs of valor and power. We must see
you at work."

"Yes," replied Rodin, coldly; "do you know at what work?" Rodin was fond
of this interrogative mode of expression. "Why, at the work that you so
basely abandon."

"What!" cried the Princess de Saint-Dizier; for Father d'Aigrigny,
stupefied at Rodin's audacity, was unable to utter a word.

"I say," resumed Rodin, slowly, "that I undertake to bring to a good
issue this affair of the Rennepont inheritance, which appears to you so
desperate."

"You?" cried Father d'Aigrigny. "You?"
"I."

"But they have unmasked our maneuvers."

"So much the better; we shall be obliged to invent others."

"But they; will suspect us in everything."

"So much the better; the success that is difficult is the most certain."

"What! do you hope to make Gabriel consent not to revoke his donation,
which is perhaps illegal?"

"I mean to bring in to the coffers of the Company the whole of the two
hundred and twelve mi