"Don't interrupt me, monsieur. I cannot prevent your associating in Paris with such light-headed characters; but when you are to travel for your instruction, and to mature your judgment, I tell you again that a Monsieur Dubourg is not a proper person for you to travel with. I don't propose that you shall take Germain either; that fellow has been behaving badly for some time. Besides, when you are travelling you should be able to do without a valet. With your money, you will find servants enough wherever you stop." "Am I to go alone, then, father?" "No; you are not twenty-one yet; you are too young to be left to your own devices. Stay--yes--he's the very man you need: Monsieur Ménard will go with you." "What, monsieur le comte, my tutor?" "He hasn't been that for a long time, and he will not go with you in that capacity, my son, but as a friend, a judicious adviser. Monsieur Ménard is an educated man, and, in addition to that, is the mildest and most patient of men. You know him well enough, I think, not to regret having him for your travelling companion. Monsieur Ménard is not a mere pedant who will constantly reprove you for enjoying yourself; he is attached to you, and he will be able, I trust, to prevent the son of the Comte de Montreville from forgetting what he owes to himself." "But, father----" "Enough. I will write to Monsieur Ménard; if he accepts, as I think he will, you can set out to-morrow." Frédéric left his father, not overpleased with his choice, although he knew that Monsieur Ménard was an excellent man. He would have preferred to travel with Dubourg, whose inexhaustible gayety harmonized perfectly with his own sentimental disposition; a fact which seems strange, at first blush, but which is very common: small men love tall women, and small women large men; loquacious folk like those who say little; gourmands never dine satisfactorily except with those who are abstemious; the strong form alliances with the weak; men of genius select wives who attend strictly to their household duties; female authors rarely have men of intellect for their husbands; ostentatious people cannot live comfortably except with those who make no pretensions; knaves consort with men of probity; the most sentimental women often love the most frivolous men, and the most loyal of the one sex will give her heart to the most fickle of the other; lastly, libertines pursue innocence, and innocence often yields to the seductions of a ne'er-do-well. Extremes meet, contrasts are drawn together, and a painter finds his most beautiful effects in the opposition of light and shadow. "Well," said Dubourg, when Frédéric joined him at the appointed place; "what news?" "Why, not very good." "Doesn't your father want you to travel?" "Oh! yes, he has consented." "In that case, I don't see why everything isn't all right." "But--he--he isn't willing----" "Go on." "He isn't willing that I should travel with you." "Why not?" "Because--he says----"