"All my babies have gone to bed; I have ten minutes to spare. . . . Why, grandmother, what's the matter? You look quite upset. . . . Is it still that business with the . . ." "No, mademoiselle," said Sernine, "I believe I have had the good fortune to reassure your grandmother. Only, we were talking of you, of your childhood; and that is a subject, it seems, which your grandmother cannot touch upon without emotion." "Of my childhood?" said Geneviève, reddening. "Oh, grandmother!" "Don't scold her, mademoiselle. The conversation turned in that direction by accident. It so happens that I have often passed through the little village where you were brought up." "Aspremont?" "Yes, Aspremont, near Nice. You used to live in a new house, white all over. . . ." "Yes," she said, "white all over, with a touch of blue paint round the windows. . . . I was only seven years old when I left Aspremont; but I remember the least things of that period. And I have not forgotten the glare of the sun on the white front of the house, nor the shade of the eucalyptus-tree at the bottom of the garden." "At the bottom of the garden, mademoiselle, was a field of olive-trees; and under one of those olive-trees stood a table at which your mother used to work on hot days. . . ." "That's true, that's true," she said, quite excitedly, "I used to play by her side. . . ." "And it was there," said he, "that I saw your mother several times. . . . I recognized her image the moment I set eyes on you . . . but it was a brighter, happier image." "Yes, my poor mother was not happy. My father died on the very day of my birth, and nothing was ever able to console her. She used to cry a great deal. I still possess a little handkerchief with which I used to dry her tears at that time." "A little handkerchief with a pink pattern." "What!" she exclaimed, seized with surprise. "You know . . ." "I was there one day when you were comforting her. . . . And you comforted her so prettily that the scene remained impressed on my memory." She gave him a penetrating glance and murmured, almost to herself: "Yes, yes. . . . I seem to . . . The expression of your eyes . . . and then the sound of your voice. . . ." She lowered her eyelids for a moment and reflected as if she were vainly trying to bring back a recollection that escaped her. And she continued: "Then you knew her?" "I had some friends living near Aspremont and used to meet her at their house. The last time I saw her, she seemed to me sadder still . . . paler . . . and, when I came back again . . ." "It was all over, was it not?" said Geneviève. "Yes, she went very quickly . . . in a few weeks . . . and I was left alone with neighbors who sat up with her . . . and one morning they took her away. . . . And, on the evening of that day, some one came, while I was asleep, and lifted me up and wrapped me in blankets. . . ." "A man?" asked the prince.