With much regret I followed him into the park, where he said to me:

"I am not sorry, my son, to be alone with you, to warn you, as it is
high time to do, against a great danger by which you may be
threatened one day; I reproach myself not to have thought of warning
you before, as what I shall communicate to you is of the utmost
consequence."

And speaking in this way, he led me through the grand avenue which
leads down to the marshes of the Seine, whence Rueil is to be seen
and Mont Valerien with its calvary. It was his usual walk. The alley
was practicable in spite of some dead trees which had fallen across
it.

"It is important for you to know to what you expose yourself by
betraying your Salamander. I do not want to interrogate you as to
what intercourse you have had with that superhuman person I have
been fortunate enough to make you acquainted with. I dare say you
feel somewhat reluctant to discuss it. Possibly you deserve praise
for that. If the Salamanders have not, m what concerns the
discretion of their lovers, the same ideas that court ladies and
tradeswomen have, it is not less true that it is the special quality
of beautiful amours to be unutterable, and that it would profane a
grand sentiment to spread it abroad.

"But your Salamander (of which I could easily find the name if I had
any idle curiosity) has perhaps omitted to give you information
about one of the most violent passions--jealousy; this character is
common to them. Know well, my son, Salamanders are not to be
betrayed without punishment awaiting you. Their vengeance on the