“Your brandy is first-rate,” remarked Rouvière presently, as he finished his _petit-verre_. “You like it? Bravo! Well, there are still some pleasant hours in life—aren’t there now, Tom?” “I believe you,” answered the guest meditatively. “Who should know it better than you, fortunate fellow as you are! But I say, Tom, how does it happen that you have not changed in the least? Not in the least, by Jove! You’ve remained young and handsome.... ‘I was young and handsome!’—do you remember how magnificently Talma used to say that? Your beard and moustaches might belong to an African lion! You make me think of Henri Quatre! But drink, Tom; you don’t drink!” “My dear old George,” said Rouvière in a quiet, confidential tone of voice, and resting his two arms on the table, while he fixed his eyes on his friend’s flushed face—“my dear old George, what _was_ your reason for burying yourself alive in Cotentin? Tell me.” “Why do you ask me that, Tom?” cried Dupuis, who suddenly became serious. “You find me rusty, then?” “No, no; but _what_ was your reason? Tell me in confidence, you know.” “Yes, I am rusty; I feel it!” said poor Dupuis mournfully. “I tell you what, Tom, the provinces of France deserve all that is said against them. They are like those springs of mineral waters which turn to stone every living creature you throw into them! What reason had I, do you ask? Gracious heavens! What is life, Tom, but a series of chances; some fatality gets you into a groove, and you are pushed on and on until you reach your grave. Try this rum, Tom.” “Do you indulge in such prolonged libations every evening?” asked Rouvière. “No, never. These are in honor of you.” “So I suspected. This is the rum, isn’t it? Come, go on, George; I want to hear the rest of your _Odyssey_.” “Well, Tom,” resumed his friend, taking a sip at his glass of rum and breathing at the same time a sigh which was almost a groan, “you remember that my prospects were pretty bright in Paris. I fully intended to buy that solicitor’s office where I was working—it had been offered to me on good conditions; but some family affairs called me home here, and here I stayed. I don’t know how it happened, but it is certain that I found a charm in this provincial life—in its futile comfort, its indolent habits, its tame monotony.” Here poor Dupuis stopped, that he might give vent to an angry gust of self-reproach by punching the fire with the tongs; after a sip of rum he continued: “All these got possession of me, wound themselves around me like a net, and I remained their captive.” His head bowed itself forward, and he sat gazing regretfully on the ugly clock in the middle of the chimney-piece. “All right, George!” laughed Rouvière; “you don’t say it, but I suspect that Madame Dupuis had a good deal to do with this final catastrophe!”