l actor, who apes all the emotions
while feeling none. And the comedy is none the less repugnant to me
because it is played through with a solemn face, and the actors are
richly recompensed.

Lampron is not like this. He has given play to all the noble qualities of
his nature. I envy him. I admire his disinterestedness, his broad views
of life, his faith in good in spite of evil, his belief in poetry in
spite of prose, his unspoiled capacity for receiving new impressions and
illusions--a capacity which, amid the crowds that grow old in mind before
they are old in body, keeps him still young and boyish. I think I might
have been devoted to his profession, or to literature, or to anything but
law.

We shall see. For the present I have taken a plunge into the unknown. My
time is all my own, my freedom is absolute, and I am enjoying it.

I have hidden nothing from Lampron. As my friend he is pleased, I can
see, at a resolve which keeps me in Paris; but his prudence cries out
upon it.

"It is easy enough to refuse a profession," he said; "harder to find
another in its place. What do you intend to do?"

"I don't know."

"My dear fellow, you seem to be trusting to luck. At sixteen that might
be permissible, at twenty-four it's a mistake."

"So much the worse, for I shall make the mistake. If I have to live on
little--well, you've tried that before now; I shall only be following
you."

"That's true; I have known want, and even now it attacks me sometimes;
it's like influenza, which does not leave its victims all at once; but it
is hard, I can tell you, to do without the necessaries of life; as for
its luxuries--"

"Oh, of course, no one can do without its luxuries."

"You are incorrigible," he answered, with a laugh. Then he said no more.
Lampron's silence is the only argument which struggles in my heart in
favor of the Mouillard practice. Who can guess from what quarter the wind
will blow?

CHAPTER XI

IN THE BEATEN PATH

June 5th.

The die is cast; I will not be a lawyer.

The tradition of the Mouillards is broken for good, Sylvestre is defeated
for good, and I am free for good--and quite uncertain of my future.

I have written my uncle a calm, polite, and clearly worded letter to
confirm my decision. He has not answered it, nor did I expect an answer.

I expected, however, that he would be avenged by some faint regret on my
part, by one of those light mists that so often