As he uttered those words, Rodin smiled strangely; his eyes, gradually
half closed, opened to their full width, and seemed to shine more than
usual. The Jesuit felt a sort of feverish excitement, which he attributed
to the contest in which he had engaged before these eminent personages,
who already felt the influence of his original and cutting speech.

Father d'Aigrigny began to regret having entered on the contest. He
resumed, however, with ill-repressed irony: "I do not dispute the
smallness of your means. I agree with you, they are very puerile--they
are even very vulgar. But that is not quite sufficient to give an exalted
notion of your merit. May I be allowed to ask--"

"What these means have produced?" resumed Rodin, with an excitement that
was not usual with him. "Look into my spider's web, and you will see
there the beautiful and insolent young girl, so proud, six weeks ago, of
her grace, mind, and audacity--now pale, trembling, mortally wounded at
the heart."

"But the act of chivalrous intrepidity of the Indian prince, with which
all Paris is ringing," said the princess, "must surely have touched
Mdlle. de Cardoville."

"Yes; but I have paralyzed the effect of that stupid and savage devotion,
by demonstrating to the young lady that it is not sufficient to kill
black panthers to prove one's self a susceptible, delicate, and faithful
lover."

"Be it so," said Father d'Aigrigny; "we will admit the fact that Mdlle.
de Cardoville is wounded to the heart."