Besides, the minister felt altogether happy to be with this man no longer in vogue, but who might be likened to coins that have ceased to be current and have acquired a higher value as commemorative medals. He could unbosom himself to him: treachery was impossible. He longed to have such a stay beside him, and still urged him, but Ramel was inflexible.
"But as I have already said—if I have need of you?"
"Of me? I am too old."
"Of your advice?"
"Well! it is not necessary for me to give you my address, since you find yourself here now, or to tell you that you can depend on me, seeing you know me."
Vaudrey felt that it was useless to pursue the matter further. He was not talking with a misanthrope or a scorner, but with a learned man. He would find at hand whenever he needed it, the old, ever faithful devotedness of this white-haired man, who, with skull-cap on his head, was smoking his pipe near the window when the minister entered.
"Then, you are happy, Ramel?" said Sulpice, a little astonished, perhaps.
"Perfectly so."
"You have no ambition for anything whatever?"
"Nothing, I await philosophically the hour for the monument."