to invent some means of livelihood; give them the key of a cash-box, and they will cease to strive, you have destroyed their genius.  My dear professor, in fifteen years I have brought about a great many marriages.  Three times I have married hunger to thirst, and, thank God, I once decided a millionaire to marry a poor girl who had not a sou, but I never aided a beggar to marry a rich girl.  Now you have my principles and ideas—­Are you listening to me still?  You fall asleep sometimes while listening to a sermon.  Good! you open your eyes—­I proceed: 

“I have seen your man.  Well, sincerely, he only half pleases me.  I do not deny that he has a handsome head; a sculptor might use it as a model.  I will add that his eyes are very interesting, by turns grave, gentle, gay, or melancholy.  I have nothing to say against his manners or his language; his address is excellent, and he is no booby—­far from it.  With all this there is something about him that shocks me—­I scarcely know what—­a mingling of two natures that I cannot explain.  He might be said to resemble, according to circumstances, a lion or a fox; I believe that the fox-nature predominates, that the lion is supplementary.  I simply give you my impressions, which I am perfectly willing to be induced to change.  I am inclined to fancy that M. Larinski passed his first youth amid vulgar surroundings, that later he came into contact with good society, and being intelligent soon shook off the force of early influences; but there still remain some traces of these.  While he was in my salon his eyes twice took an inventory of its contents, and that with a rapidity which would have done credit to a practised appraiser.  It was then, especially, that he had the air of a fox.

“Nor is this all.  I read the other day the story of a princess who was travelling over the world, and asked hospitality, one evening, at the door of a palace.  Was she a real princess or an adventuress?  The queen who received her judged it well to ascertain.  For this purpose she prepared for her, with her own hands, a soft bed, composed of two mattresses, on which she piled five feather-beds; between the two mattresses she slipped three peas.  The next day the traveller was asked how she had slept.  ‘Very badly,’ she replied.  ’I do not know what was in my bed, but my whole body is bruised; I am black and blue, and I never closed my eyes until dawn!’ ‘She is a true princess,’ cried the queen.  Is M. Larinski a true prince?  I made him undergo the test of the three peas.  I allowed myself to question him with indiscreet, urgent, improper curiosity; he did not appear to feel the indiscretion.  He replied promptly and submissively; he endeavoured to satisfy me, and I was not satisfied.  I shall see him again to-morrow—­he comes to dine at Maisons.  I only wish to be able to prove to myself that he is a true prince.

“My dear professor, you are the most imprudent of men, and, whatever happens, you have only yourself to blame.  People do not open their doors so easily to strangers.  You tell me that, thanks to M. Larinski’s kindness, you did not break your leg.  Mercy on me! a father would better break his leg in three places than expose his daughter to the risk of marrying an adventurer; his leg could be easily set.  There is nothing so frightful in that.