"Adamas!" said the marquis, after a moment's hesitation, "I have some doubt whether heaven will send me that blessing. But you suggest an attractive thought, which is to marry a woman so young that I can imagine that she is my daughter and love her as if I were her father. What do you say to that?" "I say, that if she is young, very young, monsieur can at need imagine that he has adopted a child. And if that is monsieur's idea, there is no need to go very far; the little lady of La Motte-Seuilly is exactly suited to monsieur's wants. She is beautiful, she is good, she is virtuous, she is merry; those qualities are what we need to brighten up our manor-house, and I am very sure that her father has thought of it more than once." "Do you think so, Adamas?" "To be sure! and so has she! Do you suppose that, when they come here, she draws no comparison between her old château and yours, which is a fairy palace? Do you suppose, that, for all she is so young and innocent, she has never discovered what sort of man you are compared with all the other suitors whom she has ever seen?" Bois-Doré fell asleep thinking of the absence of suitors about the fair Lauriane, of the enmity that the neighbors bore the rough and outspoken De Beuvre, and of the annoyance which De Beuvre felt on account of that state of things, temporary doubtless, but of which he exaggerated the possible duration. The marquis persuaded himself that his proposal would be hailed as one of fortune's greatest boons. The religious question would adjust itself as between them. In any event, if Lauriane should reproach him for having abjured Calvinism, he saw no objection to embracing it a second time. His self-conceit did not permit him to consider the possibility of an objection based upon his age. Adamas had the gift of dispelling that unpleasant memory every night by his flatteries. Honest Sylvain therefore fell asleep on that evening more absurd than ever; but whoever could have read in his heart the purely paternal feeling that guided his course, the boundless philosophical tolerance with which he looked forward to the possibility of being made a cuckold, and the projects of indulgence, of submission and absolute devotion which he formed with regard to his youthful helpmeet, would certainly have forgiven him, even while laughing at him. When Adamas went into his own room, it seemed to him that he heard the rustling of a dress in the secret stairway. He rushed into the passage as quickly as possible, but failed to catch Bellinde, who had time to disappear, after overhearing, as she had often done before, all the conversation between the two old fellows.