Nothing could exceed Rodin’s ingenuity, in making these little household confidences (so abominably false) to Mdlle. de Cardoville, who felt her last suspicions give way.

“What, sir?” said she to the Jesuit, with interest; “in three or four days, you mean to quit Paris?”

“I hope to do so, my dear young lady; and that,” added he, in a mysterious tone, “and that for many reasons.  But what would be very precious to me,” he resumed, in a serious voice, as he looked at Adrienne with emotion, “would be to carry with me the conviction, that you did me the justice to believe, that, on merely reading your interview with the Princess de Saint-Dizier, I recognized at once qualities quite unexampled in our day, in a young person of your age and condition.”

“Ah, sir!” said Adrienne, with a smile, “do not think yourself obliged to return so soon the sincere praises that I bestowed on your superiority of mind.  I should be better pleased with ingratitude.”

“Oh, no!  I do not flatter you, my dear young lady.  Why should I?  We may probably never meet again.  I do not flatter you; I understand you—­that’s all—­and what will seem strange to you, is, that your appearance complete, the idea which I had already formed of you, my dear young lady, in reading your interview with your aunt:  and some parts of your character, hitherto obscure to me, are now fully displayed.”

“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;