"Why 'poor friend'?" demanded Messire Robert. "Come! what have you to tell me now?"
"Am I the first, pray, to tell you the unpleasant news?"
"What is it? Speak out!"
"You know, my dear provost, that we must take things philosophically in this world, and there is an old proverb which we poor weak mortals should keep constantly in mind, for it sums up the accumulated wisdom of all nations."
"What is the proverb? Say what you have to say."
"Man proposes, my dear friend, man proposes, and God disposes."
"In God's name, what have I proposed for him to dispose of? Say on, I beg you, and let us have done with it."
"You have intended the Grand-Nesle for the residence of your daughter and son-in-law?"
"Most assuredly; and I trust that they will be installed there within three months."
"Undeceive yourself, my dear provost, undeceive yourself; the Hôtel de Nesle is no longer your property at this moment. Pardon me for afflicting you thus, but I thought, knowing your somewhat hasty nature, that it would be better for you to learn the news from the mouth of a friend, who would spare your feelings in the telling as much as possible, rather than from some malicious fellow, who would take a keen delight in your misfortune, and brutally east it in your faee, Alas! no, my friend, the Grand-Nesle is yours no longer."