matters in their true light before his Eminence."

"Speak, then; but let us have no useless speeches," said Rodin, drawing
out his large silver watch, and looking at it. "By two o'clock I must be
at Saint-Sulpice."

"I will be as brief as possible," said Father d'Aigrigny, with repressed
resentment. Then, addressing Rodin, he resumed: "When your reverence
thought fit to take my place, and to blame, very severely perhaps, the
manner in which I had managed the interests confided to my care, I
confess honestly that these interests were gravely compromised."

"Compromised?" said Rodin, ironically; "you mean lost. Did you not order
me to write to Rome, to bid them renounce all hope?"

"That is true," said Father d'Aigrigny.

"It was then a desperate case, given up by the best doctors," continued
Rodin, with irony, "and yet I have undertaken to restore it to life. Go
on."

And, plunging both hands into the pockets of his trousers, he looked
Father d'Aigrigny full in the face.

"Your reverence blamed me harshly," resumed Father d'Aigrigny, "not for
having sought, by every possible means, to recover the property odiously
diverted from our society--"

"All your casuists authorize you to do so," said the cardinal; "the texts
are clear and positive; you have a right to recover; per fas aut nefas