Jeanne and I certainly shook hands with a good many persons, but not with nearly as many as M. Mouillard.  Clean-shaven, his cravat tied with exquisite care, he spun round in the crowd like a top, always dragging with him some one who was to introduce him to some one else.  “One should make acquaintances immediately on arrival,” he kept saying.

Yes, Uncle Mouillard has just arrived in Paris; he has settled down near us on the Quai Malaquais, in a pretty set of rooms which Jeanne chose for him.  He thinks them perfect because she thought they would do.  The tastes and interests of old student days have suddenly reawakened within him, and will not be put to sleep again.  He already knows the omnibus and tramway lines better than I; he talks of Bourges as if it were twenty years since he left it:  “When I used to live in the country, Fabien—­”

My father-in-law has found in him a whole-hearted admirer, perhaps even a future pupil in numismatics.  Their friendship makes me think of that—­

   ["You don’t mind, Jeanne?”

   “Of course not, my dear; the brown diary is for our two selves
   alone.”  J.]

—­of that of the town mouse and the country mouse.  Just now, on their way back to the house, they had a conversation, by turns pathetic and jovial, in which their different temperaments met in the same feeling, but at opposite ends of the scale of its shades.

I caught this fragment of their talk: 

“My dear Charnot, can you guess what I’m thinking about?”

“No, I haven’t the least idea.”

“I think it is very queer.”

“What is queer?”

“To see a librarian begin his career with a blot of ink.  For you can not deny that Fabien’s marriage and situation, and my return to the capital, are all due to that.  It must have been sympathetic ink—­eh?”

“‘Felix culpa’, as you say, Monsieur Mouillard.  There are some blunders that are lucky; but you can’t tell which they are, and that’s never any excuse for committing them.”

I could hardly get hold of Lampron for a moment in the crowd he so dislikes.  He was more uncouth and more devoted than ever.

“Well, are you happy?” he said.

“Quite.”

“When you’re less happy, come and see me.”

“We shall always be just as happy as we are now,” said Jeanne.

And I think she is right.

Lampron smiled.

“Yes, I am quite happy, Sylvestre, and I owe my happiness to you, to her, and to others.  I have done nothing myself to deserve happiness beyond letting myself drift on the current of life.  Whenever I tried to row a stroke the boat nearly upset.  Everything that others tried to do for me succeeded.  I can’t get over it.  Just think of it yourself.  I owed my introduction to Jeanne to Monsieur Flamaran, who drove me to call on her father; his friend; you courted her for me by painting her portrait; Madame