Gabriel, still a mere boy in years, has a premature look of man. The
down shades his lip. His dress, though showy and theatrical, is no
longer that of boyhood. His rounded cheek has grown thin, as with the
care and thought which beset the anxious step of youth on entering into
life.

Both, as before remarked, spoke in whispers; both from time to time
glanced fearfully at the door; both felt that they belonged to a hearth
round which smile not the jocund graces of trust and love and the heart's
open ease.

"But," said Gabriel,--"but if you would be safe, my father must have no
secrets hid from you."

"I do not know that he has. He speaks to me frankly of his hopes, of the
share he has in the discovery of the plot against the First Consul, of
his interviews with Pierre Guillot, the Breton."

"Ah, because there your courage supports him, and your acuteness assists
his own. Such secrets belong to his public life, his political schemes;
with those he will trust you. It is his private life, his private
projects, you must know."

"But what does he conceal from me? Apart from politics, his whole mind
seems bent on the very natural object of securing intimacy with his rich
cousin, M. Bellanger, from whom he has a right to expect so large an
inheritance."

"Bellanger is rich, but he is not much older than my father."