CHAPTER IV.
A CONTEST OF ART AND A LEAGUE OF FRIENDSHIP .-- TWO CHARACTERS IN MUTUAL IGNORANCE OF EACH OTHER, AND THE READER NO WISER THAN EITHER OF THEM.
THE Abbe was now particularly courteous to me.

He made Gerald and myself breakfast with him, and told us nothing was so amiable as friendship among brothers.

We agreed to the sentiment, and, like all philosophers, did not agree a bit the better for acknowledging the same first principles.

Perhaps, notwithstanding his fine speeches, the Abbe was the real cause of our continued want of cordiality.

However, we did not fight any more: we avoided each other, and at last became as civil and as distant as those mathematical lines which appear to be taking all possible pains to approach one another and never get a jot the nearer for it.