leads an irregular life; she will corrupt our Calyste.
Already Camille Maupin has made him read many books; he has had
adventures--You knew all that, my naughty child, and you never said one
word to your best friends!"

"The chevalier is discreet," said his father,--"a virtue of the olden
time."

"Too discreet," said the jealous mother, observing the red flush on her
son's forehead.

"My dear mother," said Calyste, kneeling down beside the baroness,
"I didn't think it necessary to publish my defeat. Mademoiselle des
Touches, or, if you choose to call her so, Camille Maupin, rejected my
love more than eighteen months ago, during her last stay at Les Touches.
She laughed at me, gently; saying she might very well be my mother; that
a woman of forty committed a sort of crime against nature in loving a
minor, and that she herself was incapable of such depravity. She made a
thousand little jokes, which hurt me--for she is witty as an angel; but
when she saw me weep hot tears she tried to comfort me, and offered
me her friendship in the noblest manner. She has more heart than even
talent; she is as generous as you are yourself. I am now her child. On
her return here lately, hearing from her that she loves another, I have
resigned myself. Do not repeat the calumnies that have been said of her.
Camille is an artist, she has genius, she leads one of those exceptional
existences which cannot be judged like ordinary lives."

"My child," said the religious Fanny, "nothing can excuse a woman for
not conducting herself as the Church requires. She fails in her duty
to God and to society by abjuring the gentle tenets of her sex. A woman
commits a sin in even going to a theatre; but to write the impieties
that actors repeat, to roam about the world, first with an enemy to the
Pope, and then with a musician, ah! Calyste, you can never persuade me
that such acts are deeds of faith, hope, or charity. Her fortune was
given her by God to do good, and what good does she do with hers?"

Calyste sprang up suddenly, and looked at his mother.

"Mother," he said, "Camille is my friend; I cannot hear her spoken of in
this way; I would give my very life for her."

"Your life!" said the baroness, looking at her son, with startled eyes.
"Your life is our life, the life of all of us."

"My nephew has just said many things I do not understand," said the old
woman, turning toward him.

"Where did he learn them?" said the mother; "at Les Touches.