While Louis de Camors was learning rapidly, by the association and example of the collateral branches of his family, to defy equally all principles and all convictions, his terrible father finished the task.

Worldling to the last extreme, depraved to his very core; past-master in the art of Parisian high life; an unbridled egotist, thinking himself superior to everything because he abased everything to himself; and, finally, flattering himself for despising all duties, which he had all his life prided himself on dispensing with—­such was his father.  But for all this, he was the pride of his circle, with a pleasing presence and an indefinable charm of manner.

The father and son saw little of each other.  M. de Camors was too proud to entangle his son in his own debaucheries; but the course of every-day life sometimes brought them together at meal-time.  He would then listen with cool mockery to the enthusiastic or despondent speeches of the youth.  He never deigned to argue seriously, but responded in a few bitter words, that fell like drops of sleet on the few sparks still glowing in the son’s heart.

Becoming gradually discouraged, the latter lost all taste for work, and gave himself up, more and more, to the idle pleasures of his position.  Abandoning himself wholly to these, he threw into them all the seductions of his person, all the generosity of his character—­but at the same time a sadness always gloomy, sometimes desperate.

The bitter malice he displayed, however, did not prevent his being loved by women and renowned among men.  And the latter imitated him.

He aided materially in founding a charming school of youth without smiles.  His air of ennui and lassitude, which with him at least had the excuse of a serious foundation, was servilely copied by the youth around him, who never knew any greater distress than an overloaded stomach, but whom it pleased, nevertheless, to appear faded in their flower and contemptuous of human nature.

We have seen Camors in this phase of his existence.  But in reality nothing was more foreign to him than the mask of careless disdain that the young man assumed.  Upon falling into the common ditch, he, perhaps, had one advantage over his fellows:  he did not make his bed with base resignation; he tried persistently to raise himself from it by a violent struggle, only to be hurled upon it once more.

Strong souls do not sleep easily:  indifference weighs them down.

They demand a mission—­a motive for action—­and faith.

Louis de Camors was yet to find his.

CHAPTER IV

A NEW ACTRESS IN A NOVEL ROLE

Louis de Camor’s father had not I told him all in that last letter.