"My father," replied Emile, "is a friend whose esteem I desire and whose blame I dread. I can think of no better way to describe an energetic, stern and just character." "I have heard it said that he was a very able man, very wealthy and very jealous of his influence. Those are not disadvantages if he makes a good use of them." "What in your opinion, monsieur le marquis, is the best use that he can make of them?" "Ah! it would take a long while to tell!" sighed the marquis; "you ought to know as well as I." And, roused momentarily by the confidence Emile designedly manifested in him in order to induce a similar confidence on his part, he relapsed into his torpor, as if he feared to make an effort to throw it off. "I absolutely must break this secular ice," thought Emile. "Perhaps it's not so difficult as people think. Perhaps I shall be the first who ever tried it!" And, while maintaining, as he was bound to do, a discreet silence concerning the apprehensions which his father's ambition aroused in him, and concerning the painful conflict between their respective opinions, he spoke freely and enthusiastically of his own beliefs, of his sympathies and even of his dreams for the future of the human race. He was certain that the marquis would take him for a madman, and he amused himself by inviting contradictions which would enable him at last to penetrate that mysterious mind. "If I could only bring about an explosion of contempt or indignation!" he said to himself; "then I could discover the strength or weakness of the citadel." And he unconsciously adopted with the marquis the same tactics that his father had recently employed with him; he affected to attack and demolish everything that he assumed to be in any degree sacred in the old legitimist's eyes; "the nobility, the money power, large estates, the power of individuals, the slavery of the masses, the Jesuitism of the church, the alleged divine right of kings, the inequality of privileges and pleasures which is the basis of society as at present constituted, the domination of man over woman, who is treated as merchandise in the marriage contract and as real estate in the contract of public morality; in a word, all those heathenish laws which the Gospel has failed to banish from our institutions and which the political scheming of the Church has consecrated." Monsieur de Boisguilbault seemed to listen more attentively than usual; his great blue eyes were wide open, as if, in default of wine, his amazement at such a sweeping declaration of the rights of man had utterly stupefied him. Emile glanced at his glass, which was filled with tokay a hundred years old, and resolved to have recourse to it for inspiration if the natural warmth of his youthful enthusiasm was insufficient to avert the avalanche of snow that was about to fall upon him.