penetrating deeper into some minds than if they were given soberly. So
Colleville and I became the best friends in the world. Didn't you hear
him say to me at table, 'Rascal! you have stolen my speech'? To-night
we shall be theeing and thouing each other. I intend to have a choice
little supper-party soon, where artists, tied to the proprieties at
home, always compromise themselves. I'll invite him, and that will
make us as solidly good friends as he is with Thuillier. There, my
dear adorned one, is what a profound sentiment gives a man the courage
to produce. Colleville must adopt me; so that I may visit your house
by his invitation. But what couldn't you make me do? lick lepers,
swallow live toads, seduce Brigitte--yes, if you say so, I'll impale
my own heart on that great picket-rail to please you."

"You frightened me this morning," she said.

"But this evening you are reassured. Yes," he added, "no harm will
ever happen to you through me."

"You are, I must acknowledge, a most extraordinary man."

"Why, no! the smallest as well as the greatest of my efforts are
merely the reflections of the flame which you have kindled. I intend
to be your son-in-law that we may never part. My wife, heavens! what
could she be to me but a machine for child-bearing? whereas the
divinity, the sublime being will be--you," he whispered in her ear.

"You are Satan!" she said, in a sort of terror.

"No, I am something of a poet, like all the men of my region. Come, be
my Josephine! I'll go and see you to-morrow. I have the most ardent