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Fabien du Ronceret was a sophisticated youth, to whom such a mystification was attractive; he had precisely the keen brain and envious nature which finds in such a pursuit as this the absorbing amusement which a man of an ingenious turn lacks in the provinces. In three years, between the ages of eighteen and one-and-twenty, Victurnien cost poor Chesnel nearly eighty thousand francs!
He felt dissatisfied at home without precisely knowing what was the matter; but he dared not go to any expense to change existing conditions, and was only too glad to put by seven or eight thousand francs every year, so as to leave his son Fabien a handsome private fortune.
It is a strange fact, but these same common folk always DO take these sorts of measurements. I am glad to say that I am entrusted with a message to the Archbishop from our Holy Father, the Pope, and I have also His Holiness's instructions to request you, Madame Doucet, together with your son Fabien, to accompany me back to Rome!"
In all the universe, among all the millions and millions of worlds, there is never a pure and unselfish prayer that the great good God does not answer! Be sure of that! Take courage, dear little brother! You will soon be well!" Fabien stared, half amazed, at the gentle young face that shone upon him with such an expression of hope and tenderness.
Here, interrupting himself, he bent down, and putting his arms tenderly round Fabien, lifted him bodily, crutch and all, and carried him into the next room, and as he did so, the young Manuel glided in before him, and stood beside his chair, his blue eyes shining with a soft and eager light of interest, and a little smile lifting the delicate upper curve of his lips as he looked on.
The choice escaped all public suspicion by its very improbability. Madame Schontz intoxicated Fabien with smiles given secretly, with little scenes played on the threshold when she bade him good-night, if Monsieur de Rochefide stayed behind.
When I had recovered from my surprise, I said: "I expected you sooner, from your letter." "Your suppositions were correct. I have been two days here, at the Grand Hotel. "I should have gone to see you there, uncle, if I had known it." "You would not have found me. Business before pleasure, Fabien. I had to see three barristers and five solicitors. You know that business of that kind can not wait.
I noticed that Madame Lampron was stooping lower and lower over her needles. He went on: "I have kept the portrait, the one you saw, Fabien. They would like to have it over yonder. They are old folk by now.
She possesses the secret of that feminine deftness which is the great set-off to feminine weakness. Weak? Yes, women perhaps are weak, yet less weak than we, the strong sex, for they can raise us to our feet. She called me, "My dear Monsieur Fabien," and there was balm in the very way she said the words.
"And I never asked for your daughter." "No, but you have received your nephew beneath your roof, and consequently " "Never!" "Monsieur Fabien has been in your house since yesterday; he told you we were coming." "No, I have not seen him; I never should have received him! I tell you I no longer have a nephew! I am a broken man, a a a "