“Really, sir, you astonish me more and more.”

“I can’t help it!  I merely describe my impressions.  I can now explain perfectly, for example, your passionate love of the beautiful, your eager worship of the refinements of the senses, your ardent aspirations for a better state of things, your courageous contempt of many degrading and servile customs, to which woman is condemned; yes, now I understand the noble pride with which you contemplate the mob of vain, self-sufficient, ridiculous men, who look upon woman as a creature destined for their service, according to the laws made after their own not very handsome image.  In the eyes of these hedge-tyrants, woman, a kind of inferior being to whom a council of cardinals deigned to grant a soul by a majority of two voices, ought to think herself supremely happy in being the servant of these petty pachas, old at thirty, worn-out, used up, weary with excesses, wishing only for repose, and seeking, as they say, to make an end of it, which they set about by marrying some poor girl, who is on her side desirous to make a beginning.”

Mdlle. de Cardoville would certainly have smiled at these satirical remarks, if she had not been greatly struck by hearing Rodin express in such appropriate terms her own ideas, though it was the first time in her life that she saw this dangerous man.  Adrienne forgot, or rather, she was not aware, that she had to deal with a Jesuit of rare intelligence, uniting the information and the mysterious resources of the police-spy with the profound sagacity of the confessor; one of those diabolic priests, who, by the help of a few hints, avowals, letters, reconstruct a character, as Cuvier could reconstruct a body from zoological fragments.  Far from interrupting Rodin, Adrienne listened to him with growing curiosity.  Sure of the effect he produced, he continued, in a tone of indignation:  “And your aunt and the Abbe d’Aigrigny treated you as mad, because you revolted against the yoke of such tyrants! because, hating the shameful vices of slavery, you chose to be independent with the suitable qualities of independence, free with the proud virtues of liberty!”

“But, sir,” said Adrienne, more and more surprised, “how can my thoughts be so familiar to you?”

“First, I know you perfectly, thanks to your interview with the Princess de Saint-Dizier:  and next, if it should happen that we both pursue the same end, though by different means,” resumed Rodin, artfully, as he looked at Mdlle. de Cardoville with an air of intelligence, “why should not our convictions be the same?”

“I do not understand you, sir.  Of what end do you speak?”

“The end pursued incessantly by all lofty, generous, independent spirits—­some acting, like you, my dear young lady, from passion, from instinct, without perhaps explaining to themselves the high mission they are called on to ful, fil.  Thus, for example, when you take pleasure in the most refined delights, when you surround yourself with all that charms the senses, do you think that you only yield to the attractions of the beautiful, to the desire of exquisite enjoyments?  No! ah, no! for then you would be incomplete, odiously selfish, a dry egotist, with a fine taste—­nothing more—­and at your age, it would be hideous, my dear young lady, it would be hideous!”