This idea, of injustice somewhat poisoned the pleasure I might otherwise have derived from Pelet's soft affable manner to myself.

Certainly it was agreeable, when the day's work was over, to find one's employer an intelligent and cheerful companion; and if he was sometimes a little sarcastic and sometimes a little too insinuating, and if I did discover that his mildness was more a matter of appearance than of reality--if I did occasionally suspect the existence of flint or steel under an external covering of velvet--still we are none of us perfect; and weary as I was of the atmosphere of brutality and insolence in which I had constantly lived at X----, I had no inclination now, on casting anchor in calmer regions, to institute at once a prying search after defects that were scrupulously withdrawn and carefully veiled from my view.

I was willing to take Pelet for what he seemed--to believe him benevolent and friendly until some untoward event should prove him otherwise.

He was not married, and I soon perceived he had all a Frenchman's, all a Parisian's notions about matrimony and women.

I suspected a degree of laxity in his code of morals, there was something so cold and BLASE in his tone whenever he alluded to what he called "le beau sexe;" but he was too gentlemanlike to intrude topics I did not invite, and as he was really intelligent and really fond of intellectual subjects of discourse, he and I always found enough to talk about, without seeking themes in the mire.