“For example, I will suppose,” continued du Portail, “that your uncle, if still living, were to say to you to-day:  ’You are seeking fortune and influence, my good nephew; you want to rise above the crowd and to play your part in all the great events of your time; you want employment for a keen, active mind, full of resources, and slightly inclined to intrigue; in short, you long to exert in some upper and elegant sphere that force of will and subtlety which at present you are wasting in the silly and useless manipulation of the most barren and tough-skinned animal on earth, to wit:  a bourgeois.  Well, then, lower your head, my fine nephew; enter with me through the little door which I will open to you; it gives admittance to a great house, often maligned, but better far than its reputation.  That threshold once crossed, you can rise to the height of your natural genius, whatever its spark may be.  Statesmen, kings even, will admit you to their most secret thoughts; you will be their occult collaborator, and none of the joys which money and the highest powers can bestow upon a man will be lacking to you.”

“But, monsieur,” objected la Peyrade, “without venturing to understand you, I must remark that my uncle died so poor, you tell me, that public charity buried him.”

“Your uncle,” replied du Portail, “was a man of rare talent, but he had a certain weak side in his nature which compromised his career.  He was eager for pleasure, a spendthrift, thoughtless for the future; he wanted also to taste those joys that are meant for the common run of men, but which for great, exceptional vocations are the worst of snares and impediments:  I mean the joys of family.  He had a daughter whom he madly loved, and it was through her that his terrible enemies opened a breach in his life, and prepared the horrible catastrophe that ended it.”

“Is that an encouragement to enter this shady path, where, you say, he might have asked me to follow him?”

“But if I myself,” said du Portail, “should offer to guide you in it, what then?”

“You, monsieur!” said la Peyrade, in stupefaction.

“Yes, I—­I who was your uncle’s pupil at first, and later his protector and providence; I, whose influence the last half-century has daily increased; I, who am wealthy; I, to whom all governments, as they fall one on top of the others like houses of cards, come to ask for safety and for the power to rebuild their future; I, who am the manager of a great theatre of puppets (where I have Columbines in the style of Madame de Godollo); I, who to-morrow, if it were necessary to the success of one of my vaudevilles or one of my dramas, might present myself to your eyes as the wearer of the grand cordon of the Legion of honor, of the Order of the Black Eagle, or that of the Golden Fleece.  Do you wish to know why neither you nor I will die a violent death like your uncle, and also why, more fortunate than contemporaneous kings, I can transmit my sceptre to the successor whom