"Always the same. Saving your significant compliments on my shape and beauty, I should not, perhaps, have made this avowal, which your penetration had sooner or later provoked. Listen to me, then, my dear master: I have accepted for the moment the condition, or, rather, the appearance of a servant; circumstances oblige me to do so. I shall have the courage to play this part to the end. I will submit to all the consequences. I will serve you with zeal, activity, and respect, to preserve my place; that is to say, a sure and unknown retreat. But at the least word of gallantry, at the least liberty you take with me, I leave you--not from prudery, nothing in me, I think, looks like the prude." And she cast a glance charged with sensual electricity, which reached the very bottom of the notary's soul; he shuddered. "No, I am not a prude," she resumed, with a provoking smile, which displayed her dazzling teeth. "When love bites me, the _bacchantes_ are saints in comparison. But be just, and you will agree that your unworthy servant only wishes to perform honestly her duty as a servant. Now you know my secret, or at least a part of my secret, will you, perchance, act as a gentleman? Do I seem too handsome to serve you? Do you desire to change parts and become my slave? So be it! Frankly, I prefer that, but always on this condition, that I shall never go out of the house, and you shall have for me the most paternal attention--that need not hinder you from saying that you find me charming: it shall be the recompense of your devotion and your discretion." "The sole?" stammered Jacques Ferrand. "The sole--unless solitude makes me mad; which is impossible, for you will keep me company, and, in your quality as a holy man you shall exorcise the evil spirit. Come, decide, no mixed position; either I will serve you, or you shall serve me; otherwise I leave your house, and I beg my aunt to find me _another place_. All this must seem strange to you; so be it; but if you take me for an adventurer, without the means of existence, you are wrong. In order to make my aunt my accomplice without her knowledge, I allowed her to think I was too poor to buy other clothes than these. Yet I have, you see, a purse well-filled: on this side with gold, on the other with diamonds" (and she showed the notary a long red silk purse, filled with gold, through the meshes of which also shone precious stones). "Unfortunately, all the money in the world could not give me a retreat as secure as your house, so isolated by the retirement in which you live. Accept, then, one or the other of my offers; you will render me a service. You see, I place myself at your discretion; for to tell you that I concealed myself, is to tell you I am sought for. But I am sure you will not betray me, even if you knew how to betray." This romantic confidence, this sudden transformation of character, troubled the brain of Jacques Ferrand.