"Oh, you look very smiling over it," he cried. "Think you I like
sneaking back home again like a whipped hound to his kennel?"
"But," I protested, indignant, "monsieur is not a whipped hound."
"Well, a prodigal son, as Lucas named me yesterday. It is the same
thing."
"I have heard M. l'Abbé read the story of the prodigal son," I said.
"And he was a vaurien, if you like--no more monsieur's sort than Lucas
himself. But it says that when his father saw him coming a long way off,
he ran out to meet him and fell on his neck."