k
between two vases, and from these rose the faded stems of some dried
grasses stuck upright into sand.

"Come to the fire," said the Abbe, "for in spite of the brazier it is
fearfully cold."

And in answer to Durtal, who spoke of his rheumatism, he resignedly
shrugged his shoulders.

"All the residence is the same," said he. "Monseigneur, who is almost a
cripple, could not find a single dry room in the whole palace. Heaven
forgive me, but I believe his rooms are even damper than mine. In point
of fact there ought to be hot-air pipes all over the place, and it will
never be done for lack of money."

"But at any rate Monseigneur might have stoves put into the rooms, here
and there."

"He!" cried the Abbe, laughing, "but he has no private means whatever.
He draws a stipend of ten thousand francs a year and not another penny;
for there is no endowment at Chartres, and the revenue from the fees on
the ecclesiastical Acts is nothing. In this rich, but irreligious town
he can hope for no assistance; the gardener and porter are paid by him;
he is obliged for economy's sake to employ Sisters from a convent as
cook and linen-keeper. Add to that his inability to keep a carriage, so
that he has to hire a conveyance for his pastoral rounds. And how much
then do you suppose he has left to live on, if you deduct his charities?
Why, he is poorer than you or I!"

"But then Chartres is the fag end of Church preferment, a mere raft for
the shipwrecked and starving."

"Thou hast said! Bishop, canons, priests, everybody here is
poverty-stricken."

The bell rang, and Madame Bavoil showed in the Abbe Plomb. Durtal
recognized him. He looked even more scared than usual; he bowed, backing
away, and did not know what to do with his hands, which he buried in his
sleeves.

By the end of half an hour, when he was more at his ease, he expanded
into smiles, and at last he talked; Durtal, much surprised, saw that the
Abbe Gevresin was right. This priest was highly intelligent and
well-informed, and what made the man even more attractive was his
perfect freedom from the want of breeding, the narrow ideas, the goody
nonsense which make intercourse so difficult with the ecclesiastics in
literary circles.

They had settled themselves in the dining-room, as dismal a room as the
rest, but warmer, for an earthenware stove was roaring and puffing hot
gusts from its open ventilators.

When they had eaten their boiled eggs, the conversation, hit