“And do you really think thus severely of me?” said Adrienne, with uneasiness, so much influence had this man irresistibly attained over her.

“Certainly, I should think thus of you, if you loved luxury for luxury’s sake; but, no—­quite another sentiment animates you,” resumed the Jesuit.  “Let us reason a little.  Feeling a passionate desire for all these enjoyments, you know their value and their need more than any one—­is it not so?”

“It is so,” replied Adrienne, deeply interested.

“Your gratitude and favor are then necessarily acquired by those who, poor, laborious, and unknown, have procured for you these marvels of luxury, which you could not do without?”

“This feeling of gratitude is so strong in me, sir,” replied Adrienne, more and more pleased to find herself so well understood, “that I once had inscribed on a masterpiece of goldsmith’s work, instead of the name of the seller, that of the poor unknown artist who designed it, and who has since risen to his true place.”

“There you see, I was not deceived,” went on Rodin; “the taste for enjoyment renders you grateful to those who procure it for you; and that is not all; here am I, an example, neither better nor worse than my neighbors, but accustomed to privations, which cause me no suffering—­so that the privations of others necessarily touch me less nearly than they do you, my dear young lady; for your habits of comfort must needs render you more compassionate towards misfortune.  You would yourself suffer too much from poverty, not to pity and succor those who are its victims.”

“Really, sir,” said Adrienne, who began to feel herself under the fatal charm of Rodin, “the more I listen to you, the more I am convinced that you would defend a thousand times better than I could those ideas for which I was so harshly reproached by Madame de Saint-Dizier and Abbe d’Aigrigny.  Oh! speak, speak, sir!  I cannot tell you with what happiness, with what pride I listen.”

Attentive and moved, her eyes fixed on the Jesuit with as much interest as sympathy and curiosity, Adrienne, by a graceful toss of the head that was habitual to her, threw hack her long, golden curls, the better to contemplate Rodin, who thus resumed:  “You are astonished, my dear young lady, that you were not understood by your aunt or by Abbe d’Aigrigny!  What point of contact had you with these hypocritical, jealous, crafty minds, such as I can judge them to be now?  Do you wish a new proof of their hateful blindness?  Among what they called your monstrous follies, which was the worst, the most damnable?  Why, your resolution to live alone and in your own way, to dispose freely of the present and the future.  They declared this to be odious, detestable, immoral.  And yet—­was this resolution dictated by a mad love of liberty? no!—­by a disordered aversion to all restraint? no!—­by the desire of singularity?—­no!—­for then I, too, should have blamed you severely.”