"Your nephew is young?"
"Twenty-five."
"He is well educated?"
"Too well for his position, monsieur. My poor sister and her husband made great sacrifices for him. His sight being so poor, they gave him an excellent education in the hope he might enter the clergy, but Onésime felt that he had no calling that way, so there was nothing for him to do but secure a clerkship."
"I know the rest, but how about his personal appearance? What kind of a looking young man is he?"
"The poor fellow is neither handsome nor ugly, monsieur. He has a very kind and gentle manner, but his extreme near-sightedness gives him a rather scared look. He is really the best-hearted boy that ever lived. Ask mademoiselle, and see what she will tell you."
"Really, Suzanne, such blindness on your part amazes me."
"Such blindness, monsieur?"
"Is it possible, Suzanne, that you, who are a person of so much experience and good sense, have not felt, I will not say the impropriety, but the grave imprudence there is in having your nephew under the same roof with my daughter, and allowing them to live in the extremely intimate relations of such a secluded existence as you lead here?"
"I know that I am only a servant, monsieur, and that my nephew—"