“And you are right, my dear young lady; he is a man of unparalleled sagacity; but I deceived him by affecting more than simplicity.  Do not, therefore, think me false.  No; I am proud in my manner—­and my pride consists in never appearing above my position, however subaltern it may be!  Do you know why?  It is that, however haughty may be my superiors, I can say to myself, `They do not know my value.  It is the inferiority of my condition, not me, that they humiliate.’  By this I gain doubly—­my self-love is spared, and I hate no one.”

“Yes, I understand that sort of pride,” said Adrienne, more and more struck with Rodin’s original turn of mind.

“But let us return to what concerns you, my dear young lady.  On the eve of the 13th of February, the Abbe d’Aigrigny delivered to me a paper in shorthand, and said to me, `Transcribe this examination; you may add that it is to support the decision of a family council, which has declared, in accordance with the report of Dr. Baleinier, the state of mind of Mdlle. de Cardoville to be sufficiently alarming to render it necessary to confine her in a lunatic asylum.’”

“Yes,” said Adrienne, with bitterness; “it related to a long interview, which I had with the Princess de Saint-Dizier, my aunt, and which was taken down without my knowledge.”

Behold me, then, poring over my shorthand report, and beginning to transcribe it.  At the end of the first ten lines, I was struck with stupor.  I knew not if I were awake or dreaming. `What! mad?’ They must be themselves insane who dare assert so monstrous a proposition!—­More and more interested, I continued my reading—­I finished it—­Oh! then, what shall I say?  What I felt, my dear young lady, it is impossible to express.  It was sympathy, delight, enthusiasm!”

“Sir,” said Adrienne.

“Yes, my dear young lady, enthusiasm!  Let not the words shock your modesty.  Know that these ideas, so new, so independent, so courageous which you expressed to your aunt with so much brilliancy, are, without your being aware of it, common to you and another person, for whom you will one day feel the most tender and religious respect.”

“Of whom do you speak, sir?” cried Mdlle. de Cardoville, more and more interested.

After a moment’s apparent hesitation, Rodin resumed, “No, no—­it is useless now to inform you of it.  All I can tell you, my dear young lady, is that, when I had finished my reading, I ran to Abbe d’Aigrigny’s, to convince him of the error into which he had fallen with regard to you.  It was impossible then to find him; but yesterday morning I told him plainly what I thought.  He only appeared surprised to find that I could think at all.  He received my communications with contemptuous silence.  I thought him deceived; I continued my remonstrances, but quite in vain.  He ordered me to follow him to the house, where the testament of your ancestor was to be opened.  I was so blind