My time is all my own, my freedom is absolute, and I am enjoying it.

I have hidden nothing from Lampron. As my friend he is pleased, I can
see, at a resolve which keeps me in Paris; but his prudence cries out
upon it.

"It is easy enough to refuse a profession," he said; "harder to find
another in its place. What do you intend to do?"

"I don't know."

"My dear fellow, you seem to be trusting to luck. At sixteen that might
be permissible, at twenty-four it's a mistake."

"So much the worse, for I shall make the mistake. If I have to live on
little--well, you've tried that before now; I shall only be following
you."

"That's true; I have known want, and even now it attacks me sometimes;
it's like influenza, which does not leave its victims all at once; but it
is hard, I can tell you, to do without the necessaries of life; as for
its luxuries--"

"Oh, of course, no one can do without its luxuries."

"You are incorrigible," he answered, with a laugh. Then he said no more.
Lampron's silence is the only argument which struggles in my heart in
favor of the Mouillard practice. Who can guess from what quarter the
wind will blow?