Page:Cerise, a tale of the last century (IA cerisetaleoflast00whytrich).pdf/433

 bubble floating down the stream? There is no free agency—Destiny rules the game. The Moslem is not far wrong when he refuses to stir out of the destroyer's way, and says, 'It is ordained!' I am wiser now—I seem to have woke up from a dream. What is it you would have me do? Am I to put poison in his wine, or cut Sir George's throat to-night when he is asleep? You have only to say the word—are you not my superior? Am I not a Jesuit? I must obey!"

Alice, still crouching behind the close-cut hedge, might well be alarmed at the scraps she overheard of such a dialogue as this. Malletort, on the contrary, watched his junior with the well-satisfied air of a cook who perceives the dish on which his skill is concentrated bubbling satisfactory towards projection. He allowed the young man's emotion to exhaust itself ere he plied him again with argument, and knowing that all strong feelings have their ebb and flow like the tide, trusted to find him more malleable than ever after his late outbreak.

It was difficult to explain to Florian that his superiors desired him to make love to Lady Hamilton, in order that he might bring her husband into their hands; and the task was only rendered the more delicate by the young Jesuit's hopeless yet sincere attachment to his hostess—an attachment which had in it the germ of ruin or salvation according to his own powers of self-control—such an attachment as the good call a trial and the weak a fatality.

At times the Abbé almost wished he had selected some less scrupulous novice for the execution of this critical manœuvre—one like Brother Jerome or Brother Boniface, who would have disposed himself to it with all the relish and good-will of those who resume a favourite occupation which circumstances have obliged them, for a time, to forego. Such tools would have been easier to manipulate; but perhaps, he reflected, their execution would not be so effectual and complete. The steel was dangerously flexible and elastic, but then it was of the truest and finest temper forged. He flattered himself it was now in the hands of a workman.

"Let us talk matters over like men of the world my dear Florian," said the Abbé, after they had made two