dignity; led him into his chamber, only divided by a curtain from his
accommodation for washing and slumber, and placed him in an arm-chair
beside a drowsy fire--fuel had already become very dear.

"Gustave," said Savarin, "are you in a mood favourable to a little
serious talk?"

"Serious talk from M. Savarin is a novelty too great not to command my
profoundest interest."

"Thank you,--and to begin: I who know the world and mankind advise you,
who do not, never to meet a man who wishes to do you a kindness with
an ungracious sarcasm. Irony is a weapon I ought to be skilled in, but
weapons are used against enemies, and it is only a tyro who flourishes
his rapier in the face of his friends."

"I was not aware that M. Savarin still permitted me to regard him as a
friend."

"Because I discharged the duties of friend--remonstrated, advised, and
warned. However, let bygones be bygones. I entreated you not to quit the
safe shelter of the paternal roof. You insisted on doing so. I entreated
you not to send to one of the most ferocious of the Red, or rather,
the Communistic, journals, articles, very eloquent, no doubt, but which
would most seriously injure you in the eyes of quiet, orderly people,
and compromise your future literary career for the sake of a temporary
flash in the pan during a very evanescent period of revolutionary
excitement. You scorned my adjurations, but at all events you had the
grace not to append your true name to those truculent effusions. In
literature, if literature revive in France, we two are henceforth
separated. But I do not forego the friendly interest I took in you in
the days when you were so continually in my house. My wife, who liked
you so cordially, implored me to look after you during her absence from
Paris, and, enfin, mon pauvre garcon, it would grieve me very much if,
when she comes back, I had to say to her, 'Gustave Rameau has thrown
away the chance of redemption and of happiness which you deemed was
secure to him.' A l'oeil malade, la lumiere nuit."

So saying, he held out his hand kindly.

Gustave, who was far from deficient in affectionate or tender impulses,
took the hand respectfully, and pressed it warmly.

"Forgive me if I have been ungracious, M. Savarin, and vouchsafe to hear
my explanation."

"Willingly, mon garcon."

"When I became convalescent, well enough to leave my father's house,
there were circumstances which compelled me to do so. A young man
accustomed