'Is your lordship satisfied with the results of your journey?' he asked, with the familiarity of a petted favourite.
'I have learnt what I wanted to know,' the Bishop replied with his subtle smile. 'I ought to have taken you with me. You would have learnt a good many things that it would be useful for you to know at your age, destined as you are by your birth and connections for the episcopate.'
'I am listening, my lord,' said the young priest with a beseeching expression.
But the prelate shook his head.
'No, no; these matters are not to be spoken of. Make a friend of Abbé Faujas. He maybe able to do much for you some day. I have received full information about him.'
Abbé Surin, however, clasped his hands with such a wheedling look of curiosity that Monseigneur Rousselot went on to say:
'He had some bother or other at Besançon. Afterwards he was living in great poverty in furnished apartments in Paris. He went and offered himself. Just at that time the minister was on the look-out for some priests devoted to the government. I was told that Faujas at first quite frightened him with his fierce looks and his old cassock. It was quite by chance that he was sent here. The minister was most pleasant and courteous to me.'
The Bishop finished his sentences with a slight wave of his hand, as he sought for fitting words, fearing, as it were, to say too much. But at last the affection which he felt for his secretary got the better of his caution, and he continued with more animation:
'Take my advice and try to be useful to the vicar of Saint-Saturnin's. He will want all the assistance he can get, and he seems to me to be a man who never forgets either an injury or a kindness. But don't ally yourself with him. He will end badly. That is my impression.'
'End badly?' exclaimed the young priest in surprise.