“There are many other things to which you are not accustomed,” said Rodin, harshly interrupting the reverend father; “but you will accustom yourself to them.  You have hitherto had a false idea of your own value.  There is the old leaven of the soldier and the worlding fermenting within you, which deprives your reason of the coolness, lucidity, and penetration that it ought to possess.  You have been a fine military officer, brisk and gay, foremost in wars and festivals, with pleasures and women.  These things have half worn you out.  You will never be anything but a subaltern; you have been thoroughly tested.  You will always want that vigor and concentration of mind which governs men and events.  That vigor and concentration of mind I have—­and do you know why?  It is because, solely devoted to the service of the Company, I have always been ugly, dirty, unloved, unloving—­I have all my manhood about me!”

In pronouncing these words, full of cynical pride, Rodin was truly fearful.  The princess de Saint-Dizier thought him almost handsome by his energy and audacity.

Father d’Aigrigny, feeling himself overawed, invincibly and inexorably, by this diabolical being, made a last effort to resist and exclaimed, “Oh! sir, these boastings are no proofs of valor and power.  We must see you at work.”

“Yes,” replied Rodin, coldly; “do you know at what work?” Rodin was fond of this interrogative mode of expression.  “Why, at the work that you so basely abandon.”

“What!” cried the Princess de Saint-Dizier; for Father d’Aigrigny, stupefied at Rodin’s audacity, was unable to utter a word.

“I say,” resumed Rodin, slowly, “that I undertake to bring to a good issue this affair of the Rennepont inheritance, which appears to you so desperate.”

“You?” cried Father d’Aigrigny.  “You?”
“I.”

“But they have unmasked our maneuvers.”

“So much the better; we shall be obliged to invent others.”

“But they; will suspect us in everything.”

“So much the better; the success that is difficult is the most certain.”

“What! do you hope to make Gabriel consent not to revoke his donation, which is perhaps illegal?”

“I mean to bring in to the coffers of the Company the whole of the two hundred and twelve millions, of which they wish to cheat us.  Is that clear?”

“It is clear—­but impossible.”

“And I tell you that it is, and must be possible.  Do you not understand, short-sighted as you are!” cried Rodin, animated to such a degree that his cadaverous face became slightly flushed; “do you not understand that it is no longer in our choice to hesitate?  Either these two hundred and twelve millions must be ours—­and then the re-establishment of our sovereign influence in France is sure—­for, in these venal times, with such a sum at command, you may bribe or overthrow a government, or light up the flame of civil war, and restore legitimacy, which is our natural ally, and, owing all to us, would give us all in return—­”