"No, monsieur le marquis. The servant never mentions you any more than the master does. What I have told you is the story generally believed among the peasants." "And the basis of it is true," rejoined Monsieur de Boisguilbault, after a long pause, which seemed to restore his tranquillity entirely. "Why should you be surprised, Emile? Don't you know that it only takes a drop of water to make a lake overflow?" "But if your lake of bitterness was filled with such drops of water only, how can I fail to be surprised by your sensitiveness? I can discover no other fault in Monsieur de Châteaubrun than constant inertia and heedlessness. If it was a series of absent-minded freaks and _gaucheries_ that made his presence insupportable to you, I must say that I do not recognize your accustomed good judgment and tolerant spirit. I, whom you often call a volcano in eruption, should have been more patient than you, for Monsieur Antoine's fits of abstraction amuse me rather than irritate me, and I see in them a proof of his openness of heart and the artlessness of his mind." "Emile, Emile, you are not qualified to judge of such matters," rejoined Monsieur de Boisguilbault with an embarrassed air. "I am very absent-minded myself, and I suffer from my own mistakes. Those of other people are evidently more than I can stand, you see. Affection lives only upon contrasts, they say. Two deaf or two blind men are sadly bored together. In short, I was tired of that man! say no more to me about him." "I cannot believe that prohibition is intended seriously. O my noble-hearted friend, turn your wrath upon me alone; if I insist; but it is impossible for me to avoid seeing that this rupture is one of the principal causes of your sadness. At the bottom of your heart you reproach yourself with it as an act of injustice; and who can say that it is not the only source of your misanthropy? We find it difficult to tolerate other men when there is in the depths of our minds something for which we cannot give ourselves absolution. I believe, and I dare to tell you, that you would be comforted if you should repair the injury which you inflicted on one of your fellow-men so many years ago." "The injury I inflicted on him? What injury, pray? What revenge did I take on him? to whom did I ever say an unkind word of him? to whom have I complained? what do you yourself know of my inmost feelings toward him? The miserable fellow had better hold his peace! he will commit a great sin if he complains of my conduct."