. Enjoy yourself, you don't entertain your uncle
every day.

Marcel emptied his glass.

--Is she possessed of a husband?

--But uncle, I don't know, what you want to talk about.

--Oh, how well dissimulation is grafted in this young man's heart. I
congratulate you on it: it is good for strangers, for the profane.... But
I, Marcel, I, am I a stranger?

"Brought up in the Seraglio, I know its windings."

Come, another drop of this wine which could make the dead laugh.

--Listen, uncle, you are my second father, my master, my first director, my
only true friend. Yes, I want to ask your advice. I am afraid of soiling
one day the robe which I wear, I am afraid of becoming an object of shame
and compassion. Ah, I am unhappy.

--Here we are, cried Ridoux. Speak. The only point is to understand one
another.

LXVI.

GOOD COUNSEL.

"Ah, my friend, have not all young
people ridiculous passions? My son is
enamoured of virtue!... The customs
of the word, the need of pleasure,
and the facilities of satisfying himself
will bring him insensibly to a moderate
state of feeling, and at thirty he will
be just like any other man; he will
enjoy life, and shut his eyes to many
things which shock him to-day."

PIGAULT-LEBRUN (_Le Blanc et le Noir_).

At that moment Veronica came in to serve coffee.

In honour of her master's guest, she had put on her black dress of
Associate and her silver medal; and on her head she wore coquettishly an
embroidered cap, trimmed with tulle of dazzling whiteness.

The old Cure threw himself into his arm-chair with his head back, in order
to contemplate her with admiration. She went and came, clearing the table,
and he followed her movements with the eye of a connoisseur, estimating the
value of an article.

He smiled sanctimoniously, and the smile and attention, which the bashful
Veronica noticed, made her blush and cast her eyes modestly down.

-Eh! Eh! he seemed to say, here is a girl who is still fit to adorn a bed.

When the servant had left the room, he rose, drew the screen between the
table and the door, and then came and sat down again facing Marcel.

--I don't understand, he said, why a man should go and search away from
home, amid perils and obstacles, for a pleasure which he can obtain
comfortably, quietly, with no fear or disquietude, at his own fire-side.

--To what are you pleased to allude?

--There is a girl, Ridoux continued, who certai