instinct, without perhaps explaining to themselves the high mission they
are called on to ful, fil. Thus, for example, when you take pleasure
in the most refined delights, when you surround yourself with all that
charms the senses, do you think that you only yield to the attractions
of the beautiful, to the desire of exquisite enjoyments? No! ah, no! for
then you would be incomplete, odiously selfish, a dry egotist, with a
fine taste--nothing more--and at your age, it would be hideous, my dear
young lady, it would be hideous!"

"And do you really think thus severely of me?" said Adrienne, with
uneasiness, so much influence had this man irresistibly attained over
her.

"Certainly, I should think thus of you, if you loved luxury for luxury's
sake; but, no--quite another sentiment animates you," resumed the
Jesuit. "Let us reason a little. Feeling a passionate desire for all
these enjoyments, you know their value and their need more than any
one--is it not so?"

"It is so," replied Adrienne, deeply interested.

"Your gratitude and favor are then necessarily acquired by those who,
poor, laborious, and unknown, have procured for you these marvels of
luxury, which you could not do without?"

"This feeling of gratitude is so strong in me, sir," replied Adrienne,
more and more pleased to find herself so well understood, "that I once
had inscribed on a masterpiece of goldsmith's work, instead of the name
of the seller, that of the poor unknown artist who designed it, and who
has since risen to his true place."

"There you see, I was not deceived," went on Rodin; "the taste for
enjoyment renders you grateful to those who procure it for you; and
that is not all; here am I, an example, neither better nor worse than my
neighbors, but accustomed to privations, which cause me no suffering--so
that the privations of others necessarily touch me less nearly than they
do you, my dear young lady; for your habits of comfort must needs render
you more compassionate towards misfortune. You would yourself suffer too
much from poverty, not to pity and succor those who are its victims."

"Really, sir," said Adrienne, who began to feel herself under the fatal
charm of Rodin, "the more I listen to you, the more I am convinced that
you would defend a thousand times better than I could those ideas for
which I was so harshly reproached by Madame de Saint-Dizier and
Abbe d'Aigrigny. Oh! speak, speak, sir! I cannot tell you with what
happiness