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Rh only beauty, just as it is the only ideal and the only poetry...."

Bouret was inclined to philosophize. His letters almost always passed the range of his correspondents' comprehension. He saw that himself, when he re-read them, and smiled. All that M. Des Boys understood in his friend's dissertation was the passage which concerned Hervart; but that he understood very well. Bouret's reticences produced their ordinary effect: Hervart was considered as a man incapable, condemned without reprieve.

"He's a madman, What does he mean by going and captivating a young girl's heart when he isn't sure of being able to make a wife of her! The Lord knows, women aren't angels; they have corporal sensations; and then maternity, maternity...."

M. Des Boys conﬁded to himself all the scabrous or moral banalities that such a subject could make him think of. Meanwhile, he examined his daughter.

"How shall I explain this to her? I shall make her mother do it."

He continued his meditations; and sometimes he would smile at the evocation of fool-