“You should talk to Dhurmer a little. I’m afraid he bears me a deadly grudge for having stepped into his shoes at the _Vanguard_; but it really wasn’t my fault; I simply had to accept. You might try and make him see it and calm him down a bit. Pass.... I’m told he’s fearfully worked up against me.” He had tripped, but this time he had not fallen. “I hope he has taken his copy with him. I don’t like what he writes,” said Bercail; then turning to Bernard: “But, you, Monsieur Profitendieu, I thought that you....” “Oh, please don’t call me Monsieur.... I know I’ve got a ridiculous mouthful of a name.... I mean to take a pseudonym, if I write.” “Why haven’t you contributed anything?” “Because I hadn’t anything ready.” Olivier, leaving his two friends to talk together, went up to Edouard. “How nice of you to come! I was longing to see you again. But I would rather have met you anywhere but here.... This afternoon, I went and rang at your door. Did they tell you? I was so sorry not to find you; if I had known where you were....” He was quite pleased to be able to express himself so easily, remembering a time when his emotion in Edouard’s presence kept him dumb. This ease of his was due, alas! to his potations and to the banality of his words. Edouard realized it sadly. “I was at your mother’s.” (And for the first time he said “you” to Olivier instead of “thou.”) “Were you?” said Olivier, who was in a state of consternation at Edouard’s style of address. He hesitated whether he should not tell him so. “Is it in this milieu that you mean to live for the future?” asked Edouard, looking at him fixedly. “Oh, I don’t let it encroach on me.” “Are you quite sure of that?” These words were said in so grave, so tender, so fraternal a tone.... Olivier felt his self-assurance tottering within him. “You think I am wrong to frequent these people?” “Not all of them, perhaps; but certainly some.” Olivier took this as a direct allusion to Passavant, and in his inward sky a flash of blinding, painful light shot through the bank of clouds which ever since the morning had been thickening and darkening in his heart. He loved Bernard, he loved Edouard far too well to bear the loss of their esteem. Edouard’s presence exalted all that was best in him; Passavant’s all that was worst; he acknowledged it now; and indeed, had he not always known it? Had not his blindness as regards Passavant been deliberate? His gratitude for all that the count had done for him turned to loathing. With his whole soul, he cast him off. What he now saw put the finishing touch to his hatred.