"There is no comparison between my position and yours. There would be still less between your work and your wages. Be generous; that is the noblest and most perfect revenge. Come and work for me as you work for other people; forget that I did you a service which my purse never so much as discovered, and thus force me to be your debtor, since you will accept, in satisfaction of an irreparable outrage, the most paltry of reparations--money." "I can't understand a word when you twist it about that way. However, we will see if we can get along together. But suppose I go to your house and my face makes you angry? Come, can't you tell what you have had against me all these years? You surely owe me that. It must be that, without knowing it, I resemble somebody who has injured you. It can't be hereabout: for I don't know of anybody except the curé of Cuzion's old horse that I look anything like." "Ask me no questions; it is impossible for me to answer. Admit that I am subject to these outbreaks of madness, and love me through pity, as I cannot be loved otherwise." "Monsieur de Boisguilbault," said the carpenter warmly, "you mustn't talk like that; you don't do yourself justice. You have faults, it is true, crotchets, fits of temper that are a little violent; but you know well that everybody is obliged to respect you in his heart, because you are a just man, because you love to do good and have never made any one about you unhappy; and then you have ideas, which you haven't got from books simply, ideas that rich men don't often have, and that would make the world happy if the world chose to think the same as you do. To have these ideas it isn't enough to be well-educated and sensible, but one must love everybody in the world and not have a stone in place of a heart; that is why it is necessary that God should have a hand in it. So don't talk about loving you through pity; you would have only to put out your hand to be loved, and you wouldn't have to change much to succeed." "What must I do, in your opinion?" "The principal thing would be not to try to prevent people who are inclined to love you from doing so." "When did I ever do that?" "Many a time, and I don't speak of myself alone, as there are others whose names you surely do not want me to mention----" "Speak of yourself, Jean," said Monsieur de Boisguilbault, with painful eagerness--"or rather--come and take supper and sleep at my house to-night. I propose that we shall be entirely reconciled from this day, but on certain conditions, which I will tell you to-night perhaps, and which have nothing whatever to do with the cause of our quarrel. The rain is increasing, and these branches no longer shelter us."