"Twenty-one."
"I should have thought that you were older."
"From my face?"
"No, from your ideas."
"I would like my father to hear your opinion, monsieur le marquis, and to become imbued with it," rejoined Emile with a smile; "for he always treats me like a child."
"What sort of a man is your father?" said Monsieur de Boisguilbault, with an ingenuous absent-mindedness which removed the sting from what might have seemed at first blush a most impertinent question.
"My father," replied Emile, "is a friend whose esteem I desire and whose blame I dread. I can think of no better way to describe an energetic, stern and just character."
"I have heard it said that he was a very able man, very wealthy and very jealous of his influence. Those are not disadvantages if he makes a good use of them."
"What in your opinion, monsieur le marquis, is the best use that he can make of them?"
"Ah! it would take a long while to tell!" sighed the marquis; "you ought to know as well as I."