CHAPTER VI

I Meet With a Flattering Reception From My Patron--Madame D'Urfe's
Infatuation--Madame X. C. V. And Her Family--Madame du Rumain

During my journey from the Hague to Paris, short as it was, I had plenty
of opportunities for seeing that the mental qualities of my adopted son
were by no means equal to his physical ones.

As I had said, the chief point which his mother had impressed on him was
reserve, which she had instilled into him out of regard for her own
interests. My readers will understand what I mean, but the child, in
following his mother's instructions, had gone beyond the bounds of
moderation; he possessed reserve, it is true, but he was also full of
dissimulation, suspicion, and hypocrisy--a fine trio of deceit in one who
was still a boy. He not only concealed what he knew, but he pretended to
know that which he did not. His idea of the one quality necessary to
success in life was an impenetrable reserve, and to obtain this he had
accustomed himself to silence the dictates of his heart, and to say no
word that had not been carefully weighed. Giving other people wrong
impressions passed with him for discretion, and his soul being incapable
of a generous thought, he seemed likely to pass through life without
knowing what friendship meant.

Knowing that Madame d'Urfe counted on the boy for the accomplishment of
her absurd hypostasis, and that the more mystery I made of his birth the
more extravagant would be her fancies about it, I told the lad that if I