“Father,” he began, “after pouring out, with all the coolness in the world, a series of maxims which the vulgar would consider profoundly immoral----” “And so they are,” said the priest; “that is why Jesus Christ said that it must needs be that offences come, my son; and that is why the world displays such horror of offences.” “A man of your stamp will not be surprised by the question which I am about to ask?” “Indeed, my son, you do not know me,” said Carlos Herrera. “Do you suppose that I should engage a secretary unless I knew that I could depend upon his principles sufficiently to be sure that he would not rob me? I like you. You are as innocent in every way as a twenty-year-old suicide. Your question?” “Why do you take an interest in me? What price do you set on my obedience? Why should you give me everything? What is your share?” The Spaniard looked at Lucien, and a smile came over his face. “Let us wait till we come to the next hill; we can walk up and talk out in the open. The back seat of a traveling carriage is not the place for confidences.” They traveled in silence for sometime; the rapidity of the movement seemed to increase Lucien’s moral intoxication. “Here is a hill, father,” he said at last awakening from a kind of dream. “Very well, we will walk.” The Abbé called to the postilion to stop, and the two sprang out upon the road. “You child,” said the Spaniard, taking Lucien by the arm, “have you ever thought over Otway’s _Venice Preserved_? Did you understand the profound friendship between man and man which binds Pierre and Jaffier each to each so closely that a woman is as nothing in comparison, and all social conditions are changed?--Well, so much for the poet.” “So the canon knows something of the drama,” thought Lucien. “Have you read Voltaire?” he asked. “I have done better,” said the other; “I put his doctrine in practice.” “You do not believe in God?”