only joy and happiness? Your sufferings are mine; I am no more in my
right place than you are in yours; the same misfortune has made us
brother and sister. Ah! dear Flavie, the first day it was granted to
me to see you--the last Sunday in September, 1838--you were very
beautiful; I shall often recall you to memory in that pretty little
gown of mousseline-de-laine of the color of some Scottish tartan! That
day I said to myself: 'Why is that woman so often at the Thuilliers';
above all, why did she ever have intimate relations with Thuillier
himself?--'"

"Monsieur!" said Flavie, alarmed at the singular course la Peyrade was
giving to the conversation.

"Eh! I know all," he cried, accompanying the words with a shrug of his
shoulders. "I explain it all to my own mind, and I do not respect you
less. You now have to gather the fruits of your sin, and I will help
you. Celeste will be very rich, and in that lies your own future. You
can have only one son-in-law; chose him wisely. An ambitious man might
become a minister, but you would humble your daughter and make her
miserable; and if such a man lost his place and fortune he could never
recover it. Yes, I love you," he continued. "I love you with an
unlimited affection; you are far above the mass of petty
considerations in which silly women entangle themselves. Let us
understand each other."

Flavie was bewildered; she was, however, awake to the extreme
frankness of such language, and she said to herself, "He is not a
secret manoeuvrer, certainly." Moreover, she admitted to her own mind
that no one had ever so deeply stirred and excited her as this young
man.