ng of Rome, with a certain
marshal of France, who, with a heart full of adoration for the robber of
thrones, that was transported to Saint-Helena, has a head as hollow and
sonorous as a trumpet, into which you have only to blow some warlike or
patriotic notes, and it will flourish away of itself, without knowing why
or how. More than all this, I have talked of love affairs with a young
tiger. When I told you it was lamentable to see a man of any intelligence
descend, as I have done, to all such petty ways of connecting the
thousand threads of this dark web, was I not right? Is it not a fine
spectacle to see the spider obstinately weaving its net?--to see the ugly
little black animal crossing thread upon thread, fastening it here,
strengthening it there, and again lengthening it in some other place? You
shrug your shoulders in pity; but return two hours after--what will you
find? The little black animal eating its fill, and in its web a dozen of
the foolish flies, bound so securely, that the little black animal has
only to choose the moment of its repast."

As he uttered those words, Rodin smiled strangely; his eyes, gradually
half closed, opened to their full width, and seemed to shine more than
usual. The Jesuit felt a sort of feverish excitement, which he attributed
to the contest in which he had engaged before these eminent personages,
who already felt the influence of his original and cutting speech.

Father d'Aigrigny began to regret having entered on the contest. He
resumed, however, with ill-repressed irony: "I do not dispute the
smallness of your means. I agree with you, they are very puerile--they
are even very vulgar. But that is not quite sufficient to give an exalted
notion of your merit. May I be allowed to ask--"

"What these means have produced?" resumed Rodin, with an excitement that
was not usual with him. "Look into my spider's web, and you will see
there the beautiful and insolent young girl, so proud, six weeks ago, of
her grace, mind, and audacity--now pale, trembling, mortally wounded at
the heart."

"But the act of chivalrous intrepidity of the Indian prince, with which
all Paris is ringing," said the princess, "must surely have touched
Mdlle. de Cardoville."

"Yes; but I have paralyzed the effect of that stupid and savage devotion,
by demonstrating to the young lady that it is not sufficient to kill
black panthers to prove one's self a susceptible, delicate, and faithful
lover."

"Be it so