He was one of those men resilient if shallow, and resilient perhaps because shallow, who, persecuted by an evil fortune, are practically unconquerable—­men who, after they have been prostrated by a blow severe enough to shatter the strongest heart, come back to their old mental place after a time smiling, in nowise crushed or mutilated, and as ready to hope and love and believe and plan as before—­men who are never ennobled by sorrow, never made more serious in their thoughts, more earnest in their aims, though, as Sebastian had been, they may be fretful enough while the sore is open—­men who seem to be the unresisting sport of the unseen powers, buffeted, tortured as we see helpless things on earth—­dogs beaten and horses lashed—­for the mere pleasure of the stronger in inflicting pain, and for no ultimate good to be attained by the chastening.  The souls of such men are like those weighted tumblers of pith:  knocked down twenty times, on the twenty-first they stand upright, and nothing short of absolute destruction robs them of their elasticity.  As now when Sebastian planned the base-lines of his new home with Josephine, and built thereon a pretty little temple of friendship armed like love.

His heart was broken, he said to himself, but Josephine held the fragments, and he would make himself tolerably content with the rivet.  Still, it was broken all the same; which simply meant that of the two he loved madame the better, and would have chosen her before the other could she have come back; but that failing, this other would do, even Josephine’s love being better than no love at all.  Besides, she had her own charms, if of a sober kind.  She was a sweet-tempered, soft-hearted creature, with the aroma of remembrance round her when she was young and pretty and unattainable:  consequently, being unattainable, held as the moral pot of gold under the rainbow, which, could it have been caught, would have made all life glad.  The sentimental rest which she and her people had afforded during the turbulent times of that volcanic Pepita had also its sweet savor of association that did not make her less delightful in the present; and when he looked at her now, faded as she was, he used to try and conjure back her image, such as it had been when she was a pretty, blushing, affectionate young girl, who loved him as flowers love the sun, innocently, unconsciously, and without the power of repulsion.

Also, she had the aroma of remembrance about her from another side—­remembrance when she had been madame’s chosen friend and favorite, and the unconscious chaperon, poor dear! who had made his daily visits to Lionnet possible and respectable.  He pitied her a little now when he thought of how he had used her as Virginie’s hood and his own mask then; and he pitied her so much that he took it on his conscience, as a duty which he owed her and the right, to make her happy at last.  Yes, it was manifestly his duty—­unquestionably the right thing to do.  The petition must be signed, the suppliant raised; Ahasuerus must exalt his Esther, his loving, faithful, humble Esther; and when inclination models itself as duty the decision is not far off.