Emile listened with delight, asked him innumerable questions, and made him repeat the same stories ten times over. It was not long before Monsieur Cardonnet discovered the cause of the change that had taken place in Emile. There was no more melancholy, no more painful reticence, no more indirect reproof. It seemed as if Emile had never been in opposition to him on any subject whatever, or at least had never noticed that his father had different ideas from his own. He had become a child once more in many respects. He did not heave sighs at this or that plan of study; he seemed not to see things which might have offended his principles; he dreamed of naught but lovely, sunny mornings, long walks, precipices to climb, solitudes to explore; and yet he brought back neither sketches, nor plants, nor mineralogical specimens, as he would have done at other times. Country life pleased him above all things. It was the loveliest region in the world; the open air and exercise in the saddle did him a vast amount of good; in a word, everything was for the best, provided that he was allowed to have his way; and if he fell into a fit of musing, he would come out of it with a smile that seemed to say: "I have things within me to occupy my mind, and what you say to me is nothing compared to what I think." If Monsieur Cardonnet, by some artifice, succeeded in keeping him at home, he seemed distressed for a moment, then, suddenly assuming an air of resignation, like a man whom it is impossible to dispossess of his stock of happiness, he made haste to obey, and set about his task in order to have done with it the sooner. "There's a pretty girl at the bottom of all this," said Monsieur Cardonnet to himself, "and it is love that makes this rebellious mind so docile. It's a very good thing to know. So the philosophical, argumentative fever may give way to thirst for pleasure or to sentimental reveries! I was very foolish not to reckon on his youth and the passions of youth! I must let this storm rage--it will blow away the obstacle upon which I should have gone to pieces; and when it is time to stay the storm, I will see what it is best to do. Make haste with your riding about the country and your loving, my poor Emile! It's the same with you as with this mountain stream that has declared war on me: you will both submit when you feel the hand of the master!" Monsieur Cardonnet was not conscious of his cruelty. He believed neither in the force nor duration of love, and attached no more importance to a young man's despair than to a child's tears. If he had thought that Mademoiselle de Châteaubrun could become the victim of his plan of waiting, he might perhaps have been conscience-stricken. But the spirit of a proprietor and of _everyone for himself_, prevented him from foreseeing the danger of another.