;
I wish to be a better man than I have been; than I am - as Job's leviathan broke
the spear the dart and the habergeon, hinderances which others count as iron and
brass, I will esteem but straw and rotten wood.«
    Adèle here ran before him with her shuttlecock. »Away!« he cried harshly;
»keep at a distance, child; or go in to Sophie!« Continuing then to pursue his
walk in silence, I ventured to recall him to the point whence he had abruptly
diverged: -
    »Did you leave the balcony, sir,« I asked, »when Mdlle Varens entered?«
    I almost expected a rebuff for this hardly well-timed question: but, on the
contrary, waking out of his scowling abstraction, he turned his eyes towards me,
and the shade seemed to clear off his brow. »Oh, I had forgotten Céline! Well,
to resume. When I saw my charmer thus come in accompanied by a cavalier, I
seemed to hear a hiss, and the green snake of jealousy, rising on undulating
coils from the moonlit balcony, glided within my waistcoat and ate its way in
two minutes to my heart's core. Strange!« he exclaimed, suddenly starting again
from the point. »Strange that I should choose you for the confidant of all this,
young lady: passing strange that you should listen to me quietly, as if it were
the most usual thing in the world for a man like me to tell stories of his
opera-mistresses to a quaint, inexperienced girl like you! But the last
singularity explains the first, as I intimated once before: you, with your
gravity, considerateness, and caution were made to be the recipient of secrets.
Besides, I know what sort of a mind I have placed in communication with my own;
I know it is not one liable to take infection: it is a peculiar mind; it is an
unique one. Happily I do not mean to harm it: but if I did, it would not take
harm from me. The more you and I converse, the better; for while I cannot blight
you, you may refresh me.« After this digression he proceeded: -
    »I remained in the balcony. They will come to her boudoir no doubt, thought
I: let me prepare an ambush. So putting my hand in through the open window, I
drew the curtain over it, leaving only an opening through which I could take
observations; then I closed the casement, all but a chink just wide
