Under the date and in quotation marks, I first of all saw the Scripture text: “He who is faithful in small things will be faithful also in great.” Then followed: “Why do I always put off till to-morrow my resolution to stop smoking? If only not to grieve Mélanie” (the pastor’s wife). “Oh, Lord! give me strength to shake off the yoke of this shameful slavery.” (I quote it, I think exactly.) Then came notes of struggles, beseeching, prayers, efforts--which were evidently all in vain, as they were repeated day after day. Then I turned another page and there was no more mention of the subject. “Rather touching, isn’t it?” asked Sarah with the faintest touch of irony, when I had done reading. “It’s much odder than you think,” I couldn’t help saying, though I reproached myself for it. “Just think, I asked your father only ten days ago if he had ever tried to give up smoking. I thought I was smoking a good deal too much myself and.... Anyway, do you know what he answered? First of all he said that the evil effects of tobacco were very much exaggerated, and that as far as he was concerned he had never felt any; and as I insisted: ‘Yes,’ said he, at last. ‘I have made up my mind once or twice to give it up for a time.’ ‘And did you succeed?’ ‘Naturally,’ he answered, as if it followed as a matter of course--‘since I made up my mind to.’--It’s extraordinary! Perhaps, after all, he didn’t remember,” I added, not wishing to let Sarah see the depths of hypocrisy I suspected. “Or perhaps,” rejoined Sarah, “it proves that ‘smoking’ stood for something else.” Was it really Sarah who spoke in this way? I was struck dumb. I looked at her, hardly daring to understand.... At that moment Olivier came out of the room. He had combed his hair, arranged his collar and seemed calmer. “Suppose we go,” he said, paying no attention to Sarah, “it’s late.” “I am afraid you may mistake me,” he said, as soon as we were in the street. “You might think that I’m in love with Sarah. But I’m not.... Oh! I don’t detest her ... only I don’t love her.” I had taken his arm and pressed it without speaking. “You mustn’t judge Armand either from what he said to-day,” he went on. “It’s a kind of part he acts ... in spite of himself. In reality he’s not in the least like that.... I can’t explain. He has a kind of desire to spoil everything he most cares for. He hasn’t been like that long. I think he’s very unhappy and that he jokes in order to hide it. He’s very proud. His parents don’t understand him at all. They wanted to make a pastor of him.” Memo.--Motto for a chapter of _The Counterfeiters_: “_La famille ... cette cellule sociale._” PAUL BOURGET (_passim_). Title of the chapter: THE CELLULAR SYSTEM.