leave him pledged, according to his code, to act according to her
advantage, and he considered himself the judge of the best course to be
pursued to this end. And, moreover, this little kindness attached him to
her personally. He began to think how pleasant it would be to have so
kind and generous a person for a relation; how easily his troubles might
be borne if he had always such a ready helper at hand; how much he should
like to make her like him, and come to him for the protection of his
masculine power! First of all his duties, as her self-appointed squire,
came the necessity of finding out who her strange new acquaintance was.
Thus, you see, he arrived at the same end, via supposed duty, that he was
previously pledged to via interest. I fancy a good number of us, when
any line of action will promote our own interest, can make ourselves
believe that reasons exist which compel us to it as a duty.

"In the course of a very few days, Pierre had so circumvented Virginie as
to have discovered that her new friend was no other than the Norman
farmer in a different dress. This was a great piece of knowledge to
impart to Morin. But Pierre was not prepared for the immediate physical
effect it had on his cousin. Morin sat suddenly down on one of the seats
in the Boulevards--it was there Pierre had met with him accidentally--when
he heard who it was that Virginie met. I do not suppose the man had the
faintest idea of any relationship or even previous acquaintanceship
between Clement and Virginie. If he thought of anything beyond the mere
fact presented to him, that his idol was in communication with another,
younger, handsomer man than himself, it must have been that the Norman
farmer had seen her at the conciergerie, and had been attracted by her,
and, as was but natural, had tried to make her acquaintance, and had
succeeded. But, from what Pierre told me, I should not think that even
this much thought passed through Morin's mind. He seems to have been a
man of rare and concentrated attachments; violent, though restrained and