“Do I look curious about it?”

“Yes, you do.”

“So! so! my face speaks the truth, then? What an immense foundation of good there must be in the nature of a man who arrives at my age, and whose face has not yet lost the habit of speaking the truth!⁠—Come, Glyde! let us be candid one with the other. This secret of yours has sought me : I have not sought it . Let us say I am curious⁠—do you ask me, as your old friend, to respect your secret, and to leave it, once for all, in your own keeping?”

“Yes⁠—that’s just what I do ask.”

“Then my curiosity is at an end. It dies in me from this moment.”

“Do you really mean that?”