And he carried off his gudgeons, delighted to have had an opportunity to set the son's mind at rest concerning the father's apparent imprudence. "Oh! if that should be true!" thought Emile, as he walked excitedly along the bank of the stream; "if it should prove that this temporary generosity conceals inhuman cunning! Suppose that Jean's suspicions were well-founded! that my father, while following the blind doctrines of society, has no greater store of virtue or intelligence than other speculators have, to diminish the disastrous results of his ambition! But no, it is impossible; my father is kind-hearted, he loves his fellow-men." But Emile had death in his heart; the thought of all this waste of energy and of life for the benefit of his future made him recoil in horror and disgust. He wondered how it was that all these men who were working to build his fortune did not hate him, and he was ready to hate himself in order to balance the scales of justice. On the following day, he was still profoundly distressed, but he hailed with something like delight the day which he was to devote in part to Monsieur de Boisguilbault, because he had made up his mind to go and pass the day at Châteaubrun without saying a word to anybody. As he mounted his horse, Monsieur Cardonnet made divers satirical remarks: "You are starting early to go to Boisguilbault! it would seem that the amiable marquis's society has charms for you; I should never have suspected it, and I can't imagine what secret method you have of keeping awake after each of his remarks." "If this is your way of informing me that you do not like what I am doing," said Emile, impatiently preparing to dismount, "I am ready to give it up, although I accepted an invitation for to-day." "I not like it!" rejoined the manufacturer; "why it is a matter of perfect indifference to me whether you are bored there or somewhere else. As your father's house is the place where you find least pleasure, I am anxious that you should derive some recompense from the society of the noble personages with whom you associate." Under any other circumstances, Emile would have postponed his departure in order to prove, or at least to make him believe that the rebuke was not merited; but he was beginning to understand that it was his father's tactics to rally him when he wished to make him talk; and as he felt invincibly drawn toward Châteaubrun he determined not to allow himself to be trapped. Although nothing in the world stung him more keenly than the ridicule of those whom he loved, he made an effort to seem to take it in good part. "I anticipate so much pleasure at Monsieur de Boisguilbault's," he said, "that I propose to go there by the longest road, and my détour will probably extend to five or six leagues, unless you need me, father, in which case I will gladly sacrifice to you the delights of a ride in the hot sun over perpendicular roads."