"Yes, father, I do," Emile replied, leaning over the table that stood between them and putting out his hands imploringly. "Oh! do not play with me now, for you would kill me!" "Do you doubt my word?" "I cannot, if your word is given seriously." "It is the most serious promise I have ever given in my life, as you can judge for yourself. You have a noble heart and an eminent mind; I know it and I have proofs of it. But with equal sincerity and equal certainty, I can tell you that your brain is both too weak and too active, and that twenty years hence, perhaps--always perhaps, Emile--you will not be competent to take care of yourself. You will be constantly attacked by vertigo, you will never act coolly, you will take sides passionately, for or against men and things, without precaution and without discernment, without the voice of the indispensable instinct of self-preservation to appeal to you and warn you from the depths of your conscience. You have a poetic nature; it would be useless for me to try to deceive myself in that respect, for everything leads me to the painful certainty that you need a guide and a master. Bless God, therefore, who has given you for your guide and master a father, your best friend. I love you as you are, although you are just the opposite of what I should have liked, could I have chosen my son. I love you as I would love my daughter if nature had not made a mistake in your sex; that is enough to tell you that I love you passionately. So do not complain of your fate and never let my reproaches humiliate you. In our present position with regard to each other, which is clearly defined now to my mind, I will make immense sacrifices to your happiness and your future; I will overcome my repugnance, which is very great, I confess, and I will allow you to marry the illegitimate daughter of a nobleman and his servant. I will satisfy your heart and your passions, as I have said; but only on the condition that your mind is to belong to me absolutely thenceforth, and that I am to dispose of you as freely as of myself." "O my God! is it possible!" exclaimed Emile, dazzled and terrified at the same time; "but what do you intend by this renunciation of self, father, what meaning do you give to it?" "Didn't I just tell you? Don't pretend that you can't understand me. Look you, Emile, I know the whole of your Châteaubrun romance, and I could repeat it to you word for word, from your arrival one stormy night down to the Crozant expedition, and from Crozant down to your conversation last Saturday in Monsieur Antoine's orchard. I know all the characters now as well as you do yourself, for I chose to see with my own eyes, and yesterday, while you were exploring the banks of the stream, I went to Châteaubrun, on the pretext of supporting Constant Galuchet's offer of marriage, and I talked a long while with Mademoiselle Gilberte." "With her, father?"