see Paul de Manerville standing in front of him, for at such a time
nothing is more agreeable than to eat in company.

"Well," his friend remarked, "we all imagined that you had been shut up
for the last ten days with the girl of the golden eyes."

"The girl of the golden eyes! I have forgotten her. Faith! I have other
fish to fry!"

"Ah! you are playing at discretion."

"Why not?" asked De Marsay, with a laugh. "My dear fellow, discretion
is the best form of calculation. Listen--however, no! I will not say
a word. You never teach me anything; I am not disposed to make you a
gratuitous present of the treasures of my policy. Life is a river which
is of use for the promotion of commerce. In the name of all that is most
sacred in life--of cigars! I am no professor of social economy for the
instruction of fools. Let us breakfast! It costs less to give you a
tunny omelette than to lavish the resources of my brain on you."

"Do you bargain with your friends?"

"My dear fellow," said Henri, who rarely denied himself a sarcasm,
"since all the same, you may some day need, like anybody else, to use
discretion, and since I have much love for you--yes, I like you! Upon my
word, if you only wanted a thousand-franc note to keep you from blowing
your brains out, you would find it here, for we haven't yet done any
business of that sort, eh, Paul? If you had to fight to-morrow, I would
measure the ground and load the pistols, so that you might be killed
according to rule. In short, if anybody besides myself took it into his
head to say ill of you in your absence, he would have to deal with the
somewhat nasty gentleman who walks in my shoes--there's what I call a
friendship beyond question. Well, my good fellow, if you should
ever have need of discretion, understand that there are two sorts of
discretion--the active and the negative. Negative discretion is that
of fools who make use of silence, negation, an air of refusal, the
discretion of locked doors--mere impotence! Active discretion proceeds
by affirmation. Suppose at the club this evening I were to say: 'Upon my
word of honor the golden-eyed was not worth all she cost me!' Everybody
would exclaim when I was gone: 'Did you hear that fop De Marsay, who
tried to make us believe that he has already had the girl of the golden
eyes? It's his way of trying to disembarrass himself of his rivals: he's
no simpleton.' But such a ruse is vulgar and dangerous. However gross a
folly one ut