remarks. When we reached the
school, after getting out of the carriage to give me his hand he saw for
himself that he must not enter the house and he therefore got back into
the carriage to await my return.

Well, I found Monsieur Armand had hoaxed me. His illness reduced itself
to a headache, which departed soon after he had written me. The doctor,
for the sake of ordering something, had told him to take an infusion
of linden-leaves, telling him that the next day he could go back to his
studies. I had taken a club to kill a flea, and committed all sorts of
enormities to get there at an hour when the entire establishment were
going to bed, only to find my young gentleman perfectly well and playing
chess with one of the nurses.

On leaving the school I found the rain had ceased and the moon was
shining brightly. My heart was full; the reaction from my great anxiety
had set in and I felt a need of breathing the fresh air. I therefore
proposed to Monsieur Dorlange to dismiss the coach and return on foot.

Here was an opportunity for him to make me that long-delayed
explanation; but Monsieur Dorlange seemed so little inclined to take
advantage of it that, using Monsieur Armand's freak as a text, he read
me a lecture on the danger of spoiling children: a subject which was not
at all agreeable to me, as he must have perceived from the rather stiff
manner with which I listened to him. Come, thought I, I must and will
get to the bottom of this history; it is like the tale of Sancho's
herdsman, which had the faculty of never getting told. So, cutting short
my companion's theories of education, I said distinctly:--

"This is a very good time, I think, to continue the confidence you were
about to make to me. Here we are sure of no interruption."

"I am afraid I shall prove a poor story-teller," replied Monsieur
Dorlange. "I have spent all my fire this very day in telling that tale
to Marie-Gaston."

"That," I answered laughing, "is against your own theory of secrecy, in
which a third party is one too many."

"Oh, Marie-Gaston and I count for one only. Besides, I had to reply to
his odd ideas about you and me."

"What about me?"

"Well, he imagined that in looking at the sun I should be dazzled by its
rays."

"Which means, speaking less metaphorically--?"

"That, in view of the singularities which accompanied my first knowledge
of you and led me to the honor of your acquaintance, I might
expose myself to the danger, m