"I do not wish for anything better."
"Did you not ask me to come to you?"
"Certainly."
"It was not I who came on my own initiative?"
"No."
"I should not have come if you had not written to me."
"That would have been very remiss on your part."
"Possibly; but, all the same, I did not come. Now you talk of a desire: I have not expressed any; it is not I who desire to remain attached to the household. If they want to keep me, they must make me librarian; as to salary, they need not give me any. You see I am making things exceedingly easy for His Royal Highness."
"Ah! are you always going to be wilful?"
"No, but I remember what M. le Duc d'Orléans condescended to write, by the side of my name, in his own handwriting, a month ago: 'Suppress his bonuses,' etc. etc."