And as the Duke continued, speaking slowly, and with something of the languor of this surrounding autumnal world,—which seemed to strive toward no larger upshots than the ripening of grains and fruits,—it occurred to Florian, for the first time in Florian’s life, that this always smiling father of his was, under so many graces, an uneasy and baffled person. The Duke said: “To submit is the great lesson. I too was once a dreamer: and in dreams there are lessons. But to submit, without dreaming any more, is the great lesson; to submit, without either understanding or repining, and without demanding of life too much of beauty or of holiness, and without shirking the fact that this universe is under no least bond ever to grant us, upon either side of the grave, our desires. To do that, my son, does not satisfy and probably will not ever satisfy a Puysange. But to do that is wisdom.” The boy for some while considered this. He considered, too, the enigmatic, just half-serious face of his father, the face that was at once the face of Michael and of Janicot. To accept things as they were, in this world which was now going to sleep as if the providing of food-stuffs and the fodder for people’s cattle were enough; and to have faith without reasoning over-logically about it: all these grown persons seemed enleagued to proffer him this stupid and unaspiring advice. But Florian, at ten, had learned to humor the notions of his elders. So he said affably, if not quite without visible doubtfulness, “I see....” EXPLICIT It is gratifying to relate that, in a world wherein most moral lessons go to waste, young Florian duly honored the teaching of his dream. Therefore, as the boy grew toward maturity, he reduplicated in action all the crimes he had committed in fancy, and was appropriately grateful for his fore-knowledge that all would turn out well. But, when he had reached the thirty-sixth year of his living and the fourth chapter of this history, he then, at the conclusion of his talking with Marie-Claire Cazaio, decorously crossed himself, and he shrugged. “Let sleeping ideals lie,” said Florian: “for over-high and over-earnest desires are inadvisable.” Thereafter he rode, not into Acaire, but toward the Duardenez. He forded this river uneventfully; and four days later, at Storisende, was married, _en cinquièmes noces_, to Mademoiselle Louise de Nérac.